Charlie Smith High moved to the top of Group G of the ISSA/FLOW Manning Cup Schoolboy football competition, after lowering the colours of early leaders Calabar High with a 2-0 victory at the Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex yesterday.

A goal in each half from Tyrick Reid (31st) and Andre Williams contrived to hand Calabar their first defeat of the campaign and moved Charlie Smith to the top of the group with 18 points — the same as Calabar, but with a superior goal difference.

Coach Jerome Waite was pleased with the manner in which his team went about gathering themselves to reverse the scoreline, having lost the opening game 1-3 to Calabar High.

“Charlie Smith opened a bit anxious but after that they just started to gel. On the afternoon we created enough chances to score at least six goals, but failed to have these chances converted; but that is a very good sign to be creating goals. As the season continues we will get better and better as our main objective is to win the zone and move on to the next round. And these players, if you notice, every game they play they look better and better.”

Calabar’s Assistant Coach Yannick Morrison said: “It was not a game we wanted to lose, but congrats to Charlie, they showed that they wanted it more than we did. For us I thought our minds were not on the game, it was focused more on the home crowd and I thought there is where we fell down. We needed to concentrate a lot more. This is an area we have to pay greater attention [to] when we go back to the drawing board, to keep pace with Charlie. You would win some and lose some, which means that the race is not over,” Morrison added.

Charlie opened at a brisk pace and should have scored twice through Williams, who went perilously close in the 14 minute. Ten minutes later he missed with a headed goal around the same spot on the edge of the six-yard box. Two minutes before Williams’ miss Collin Anderson went close for Calabar but their efforts were tame compared with those missed by Charlie Smith, especially in the second half when the misses looked blatant. This kept the score to 2-0, which was enough to elevate Charlie Smith to the top of group.