August Town captain, Mervin Miller (right), dribbles away from Sporting Central's Jamoley Powell (centre), while Kemar Cockburn looks on, in the Digicel Premier League football match at Barbican Sports Complex yesterday. Miller scored the lone goal in a 1-0 win for August Town. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer
Promoted August Town relieved mounting pressure with their first victory of the season, a hard-fought 1-0 win over Sporting Central, in the Digicel Premier League (DPL) football match at Barbican Sports Complex yesterday.
The result, coming on the heels of a 1-4 thrashing away to Arnett Gardens last weekend, snapped a six-game winless streak for August Town, who have had a torrid time since returning to the big times.
Though moving to five points, they are still bottom of the 12-team standings. Sporting, meanwhile, continued their free fall, losing their third consecutive match to remain on nine points.
"We needed to win, we were just really tired of losing and today we went out there and worked really hard for this result," said Calvert Fitzgerald, coach of August Town.
"I am very relieved that we are finally off the mark. We played for about 80 minutes today, that has to improve but we will keep working."
Poor attempt
Mervin Miller made the most of a poor attempt by Sporting Central to clear their lines, as his 35th-minute blast from just inside the 18-yard area flew off the fingertips of goalkeeper Tristan Huntley and hit the net.
But it was the Clarendon team who had looked the more dangerous in the early exchanges. In fact, August Town goalkeeper Devon Haughton had to be at his best, showing a strong pair of wrists to keep out a fiercely struck 23rd-minute attempt from Jermaine Christian.
A fluid sweeping attack only minutes before had prised the August Town backline wide open, but hesitation by Christian on breaking into the area saw the opportunity quickly snuffed out.
The home team came for the second half looking a better organised unit and following the 65th-minute sending-off of Camaal Reid, dominated the play.
Viciously struck shot
Growing more confident by the minute, they threatened to extend the lead in the 73rd minute, but after swarming down the pitch with a series of delightful passes, August Town saw Terrence Allen's attempt, a viciously struck shot from the edge of the area, kept out of goal by Huntley.
The 10-man Sporting were again exposed a few minutes later, but Nicholas Smith's left-sided cross was just out the reach of Jermaine Simpson.
Substitute Karl Wiggan gave Sporting their best chance of pulling level in the 90th minute, but saw his free kick kept out of the goal by another acrobatic save from Haughton.
"We have been taking a lot of silly cards of late and are a little depleted with some of our main players out. But hats off to August Town, they played well today," said Sporting coach Donovan Duckie.
"Of course, the surface did not help our cause but we were a little tentative early on, I thought we were a lot more positive chasing the game."
Meanwhile, St Georges Sports Club regained leadership of the championship with a 1-0 win over Rivoli United, at Lynch Park, Buff Bay.
Victory lifted the Portland team to 17 points, one more than defending champions Tivoli Gardens, whose fixture against Harbour View was postponed yesterday, due to the death of its national player, Oraine Simpson.
Rivoli United, in the meantime, remained on seven points,the same as Humble Lions, who played to a 1-1 draw with Village United at Effortville Community Centre in Clarendon yesterday.
It was the sixth tied result in eight matches for Trelawny's Village, which moved up to nine points.