After going nearly three years without seeing a ball kicked in competitive action at their Drewsland home-base, Waterhouse fans are expected to fill the football club’s mini-stadium to capacity on Sunday when they welcome former champions Portmore United for a 4:00 pm kickoff on match day 12, the penultimate match day of round one in the Jamaica Premier League.

Seventh place Waterhouse on 16 points will face eighth place Portmore United on 15 points as both clubs languish in midtable after equally inauspicious starts to the current campaign.

To their credit, Waterhouse have been trending in the right direction, picking up nine points from their last four games which has lifted them from near the foot of the table and changed the mood around the club in recent times.

But while Waterhouse’s season is heading in the right direction, the same cannot be said for Portmore United who have picked up just a single point from their last three games and head into Sunday’s match on the back of consecutive defeats.

Head coach Phillip Williams will be hoping for a good performance and three points when Portmore come upon against a team that are really now just finding their feet.

He will be hoping that the pressure of playing in front of their home crowd after so long may give his boys something to exploit early on.

Waterhouse head coach Marcel Gayle admitted that things have started to come together now for his team after a rocky start to the campaign.

“We are doing better in training. I think we are putting the pieces together and we see it now in the results. Now we want to hit the training ground hard every day. The results at the weekend sometimes differ but we are putting in the work now,” Gayle said.

With things turning around for them and after grinding out a tough 1-0 win over league leaders Cavalier last weekend, Gayle is looking forward to having home support as they continue to push for a place in the top six.

“Our crowd I think is the most fantastic crowd out there. It’s a welcome feeling. We are looking forward to the crowd and they are looking forward to seeing their boys at home playing, so we are looking forward to the crowd and the enthusiasm which the Waterhouse crowd always displays,” he said.

A win for Waterhouse on Sunday would see them into the playoff spots, if only temporarily, and would certainly be a massive boost for a club with very large ambitions.

Portmore themselves are looking to end their mini slump with a win and would do well with three points which would also give them a top six boost.