People who passed the Discovery Bay Community Centre along the North Coast Highway might have wondered what activity was taking place past midnight Thursday. There were cheers and action from the field after midnight but it wasn’t the usual community dance.
This was the climax festival of weeks of football and netball and the final matches in this festival of community teams was played up to 12:30 a.m, Friday.The organizers are proud of the event that brought out people from communities such as Runaway Bay, Bellair, Top Bay, Old Foly, Farm Heights, Keith, Thicketts, Queenhythe, Dumbarton and many others around Discovery Bay.It brought out teams from much further, including from Ocho Rios, from where the winning police youth club football team came and from across the border in Ruo Bueno, Trelawny from where the masters team that won that category of the games came.The sporting event, referred to by many as Thursday night sports, has also brought out leaders and supporters from the two major political parties, with their differences submerged in the community show. Dr Dayon Campbell, MP, a sponsor, gave the final comments after 1 a.m Friday, hailing the event and the behaviour of the people and organizers. His JLP adversary, constituency caretaker Othneil Lawrence also spoke, saluting the discipline of the teams and recommiting to his sponsorship and that of his colleague, JLP constituency caretaker Carlton Ricketts who also spoke.Praises were stored though for Philpott Mitchell PNP caretaker councillor who has made the community centre and its maintenance his project. He is accredited with putting a team in place to maintain the grounds and also for using his own money to purchase lawn mower and to keep the grounds in tip top shape.On the night, matches got going around 9 o’clock with inadequate generator lights but with the play areas marked and properly cordoned.Structure 35 beat Bounce Out Masters of Old Folly 5-4 on penalties, to win the Masters Section.In the Community Section, Rio Bueno won on a 2-0 aggregate over Old Folly in their two-way finals. On the night the game ended 0-0 but Rio Bueno had a 2-0 win from the previous game.There were six netball teams in the competitions. Overall winners were Bethel who beat Ocho Rios Strikers 13-12, Old Folly placed third.
One of the organizers Henry Brady said the football competition had been running for 21 weeks, having started with 12 teams in the community football, five teams from the police youth club and five masters teams that dropped down to three. Matches were on a smaller field than the standard and with each half 20 minutes each.
