Christie's strike helps 'Villa secure Major victory
Navan side best in DDSL Major Play-off final
Parkvilla travelled to Crumlin on a very hot Saturday evening to play Ardmore Rovers for a title decider and carved out a 1-0 win with the golden goal scored by Sean Christie.
With both teams finishing the league campaign neck and neck on 55 points way ahead of the remaining teams it was always going to be a tight game, played bizarrely on an Astro pitch.
Chances were very few and far between on a tight pitch that didn’t help as both sides found it difficult to get into a rhythm on the hot surface.
Ardmore created the opening half's best chance when a cross fell to the feet of the centre forward and only 10 yards out he didn’t connect properly with his shot, which Sonny O’Gorman dealt with easily.
The Commons Road lads with one of their best passages of play opened the scoring on 25 minutes when Fawaz Adewunmi played a lovely diagonal ball across the pitch to captain Brandon Zamojski who burst down the line and passed a lovely ball into the path of the on rushing Sean Christie who made no mistake with a shot into the bottom corner. Ardmore rallied before half-time however the scoreline stayed at 1-0 at the break.
The second half again started evenly and Parkvilla had the best chance when Jack Kelly’s freekick found Maciej Fijalkwaski at the back post and his header went agonisingly just over the bar.
Disaster struck just 11 minutes into the half when Jack Kelly was sent off for a second bookable offence leaving the Navan lads with a reshuffle and allowing Ardmore to dominate proceedings.
Wave after wave of attack was thwarted by an excellent defence, superbly marshalled by Luc Doyle, Fawaz Adewunmi and Maciej Fijalkwaski. After Craig Friery went off injured it made an already under pressure defence with more to do, which Kieran O’Reilly, Wojciech Marzec and Dylan Buckle managed.
This left Sam Kirwan and Jack Dempsey to do some tireless running up top to try and keep the ball from returning into the box which it seemed to be doing at every opportunity.
For all their play and given the number of times the ball was launched into our box Ardmore didn’t create any clear goalscoring opportunity, thanks to the wonderful defending from the Villa lads.
So the lads can proudly claim the title as champions having went through the campaign scoring 66 league goals (the most in the league), conceding 22 (the least in the league), winning every home match (the only team to achieve this), and losing just one game (the least in the league).
It has been a wonderful campaign that was only made possible by each and every member of the squad being focused through out the season.
Parkvilla squad - Brandon Zamojski (C), Wojciech Marzec, Kieran O’Reilly, Craig Friery, Ryan Murray, Jack Kelly, Sonny O’Gorman, Enzo McConnell, Fawaz Adewunmi, Luc Doyle, David Crocock, Maciej Fijalkwaski, Callum Bartley, Alan Istrati, Jack Dempsey, Sam Kirwan, Sean Christie and Dylan Buckle.