Old Madrid Captain Garnett Ferron celebrated a calmly taken penalty to give his team a share of the points in a 1-1 draw with the Ballstars in the BVIFA National League.

Jamie McCoy had given the Ballstars a short lived goal advantage, but says there are better days ahead for his team.

Dowlyn Daley was by far the busiest keeper, making numerous saves to keep the Ballstars at bay.

McCoy had opened the scoring with a neat finish past advancing Dowlyn Daley in goal, but less than two minutes later Ferron had leveled the score with a calmly taken penalty giving Troy Cesar no chance.

A feisty game had threatened to boil over as the Ballstars in particular reacted to several referring decisions they clearly felt had not gone their way.

Coach Vincent “Nabo” Samuel was not happy with the officiating and made it clear it had added to his player’s ill-discipline. “The team is dealing with some adversity. We have to address some issues including discipline, but some of that is down to the Officials. The officiating is leaving a lot to be desired and is getting into the minds of the younger ones. I will get them to keep their calm and be more selective in their actions.”

With Old Madrid seemingly settling for a point in the second half, Samuel was also left to rue several missed opportunities and whilst claiming the game as points dropped he added, “the finishing wasn’t there tonight, we are in a rebuilding stage following the loss of a few players. I think we are holding our own and happy with where we are.”

Opposing Coach Elroy “Mandraker” Mills was clearly the happier coach, but was somewhat relieved when the final whistle blew. “We have been getting a lot of knocks, but in this game against the young boys we have done well—we didn’t play completely to expectation, but had chances to win. After the score was 1-1- we decided we were going to play a more defensive role, some of the guys didn’t have the discipline but in the end it’s a good result for us.”

Captain Ferron was also happy to see his team come through a long run of defeats with the point. “We came with a game plan to play cat and mouse, to sit back and let them come at us. A couple of chances went begging but fortunately we got the break with the penalty which I calmly put away. It’s a great change taking into consideration our lengthy losing streak. Any point we got from this game is most satisfying and will give us a boost for the rest of the season.”

McCoy who scored the Ballstars goal was philosophical about the result. “Things didn’t go our way, but we did ok and will do better next time. I enjoyed my goal, the keeper came out but I was able to slot it home past him.”

In other games, the Islanders remained unbeaten with a 3-0 win over VG United and the Sugar Boyz beat the Panthers 1-0 thanks to a goal from Jario Morris in added time at the end of the 90. The last gasp winner giving them all 3 points and leapfrogging them over the Wolues into 2nd place in the league. The Wolues were held to a goalless tie by One Love.