After suffering in the wilderness for 23 years Olympic Gardens are now Magnum/KSAFA Major League champions after they came from a goal down to defeat rivals Seaview Gardens FC 2-1 in the final at the Constant Spring Field on Friday.

Olympic Gardens fell behind to a Zenard Street header before they roared back with goals from Andre Brown and Stephon Maxfill to claim a deserved victory in a season where they have been inspired by the legendary Reggae Boy, Ian “Pepe” Goodison.

Goodison began the season on the sidelines as a member of the management team before he was drafted in to the team late in the season. He began the final playing in central midfield as Olympic Gardens took the game to a Seaview Gardens team that had had the measure of them in two regular season games.

Despite bossing the game early, Olympic Gardens found themselves behind in the 18th minute when Street rose highest to meet a left-sided cross and powered his header home at the near post, to give his team the lead against the run of play.

Olympic Gardens had a glorious chance to draw level when Jurian Lewis rounded Roje Williams in the Seaview Gardens goal and fired on target, only to see a retreating Johnoy Martin head the ball off the goal line.

Things then got worse for the Nicholas Stewart-coached team when Goodison limped off in the 32nd minute with a leg injury.

Despite the odds stacking up against them Olympic kept pressing and drew level through a header of their own from Andre Brown nodded home a free kick in the first minute of added time at the end of the first half.

Olympic Gardens goalkeeper Nicholas Fletcher dropped a routine cross early in the second half but was happy to see his defenders scramble the ball clear.

An even second half started to belong to Olympic Gardens as the game wore on and a kind knockdown fell kindly to Maxfill, who was unable to get his shot on target from just inside the box. A lobbed effort from Andre Harding went just over the crossbar as the intensity increased from Olympic Gardens in the hunt for a winner.

As the minutes ticked away and with the score still locked at 1-1, the game seemed headed for extra time until Maxfill stepped up to become the hero.

Olympic Gardens were awarded a free-kick in the fourth minute of added time and the striker put a thunderbolt of a left-footed strike into the top right corner of the goal from 23 yards that would have made Cristiano Ronaldo blush.

Nicholas Stewart said that he and his management team had endured a lot to gain victory at the end of the season.

“This means a whole lot. We have worked hard all season…and it was really a trying time. Sometimes the supporters were on our backs, sometimes the players were on our backs, but at the end of the day we stuck to what we were doing because we know what we were doing would pay off in the long run.”

The victory in the final came through proper planning, Stewart revealed.

“That Seaview team beat us two times and we did our homework and sorted out the problems that we thought we had, when we played them and here we are today, 2-1 winners, well done Olympic Gardens.”

Both Olympic Gardens goals came from set plays which has been a feature of the team this year said the coach.

“This team has been scoring from set pieces all season. We can probably count on one hand how many goals we have scored from open play. We have been scoring free kicks, penalties, corners. When we got that free kick something told us that something would happen and we know that from we got that equaliser we would finish off this Seaview team.”

“Oshane (Campbell) is our free-kick taker and he came to us and said to us that Stephon Maxfill wanted to take the shot, he had the confidence and we told him to go ahead and let Maxfill take it and Stephon kicked it and the rest is history. That is a goal for World Cup and Champions League,” Stewart declared.

When Olympic Gardens last won the title they had been led to victory by Ian Goodison.