Grand Success of the Charity Match
It was a dream comes true for the Nepal Sports Journalists Forum (NSJF) as 10,000 turned up for the Challenge to the Champion Charity Football Match and were served the best of the games by the two competing teams.
Though winning wasn’t the main motive, both Manang Marsyandi Club (MMC) and Nabil Three Star Club (NTSC) showed the great fighting spirit and the desire to win. But it was national champion MMC who reigned at the end with two late goals from Raj Kumar Ghising.
The match ended 2-0 in MMC’s favor against their archrival but the real winners were the football crazy Kathmanduites who rendered their support to make the charity match a success.
NSJF in association of Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) organized the match in aid of the Journalists’ Welfare Fund to support the education of the children of journalists who lost their lives during the decade-long armed conflict in the country.
The match began observing a minute’s silence in memory of all the journalists who lost their lives during these years. Daughters of late journalist Dekendra Thapa, who was brutally murdered by Maoists two years ago, Nutan and Nisha inaugurated the match handing over the match ball to referee Surendra Sikhrakar.
Despite the match being played for a charitable cause, the players from both the teams were in no mood of leaving any space for the win. The best chance of the even first half went to MMC as Prasant Giri’s solo effort deflected off the woodwork while NTSC made a few attempts for goal.
The second half was more competitive as both the teams went on the offensive. There was not much to choose between the two teams until the penultimate minute of the match when man-of-the-match Rajkumar Ghising scored a blinder to silence NTSC fans. He sold a dummy to a defender before putting the Martyr’s Memorial League champion ahead.
He found the top right corner of the goal with a thundering strike from the penalty box that beat diving Upendra Man Singh in the second bar. MMC fans had not even finished celebrations when Ghising fired the second goal for MMC in the first minute of the injury time from the opposite direction this time.
In a similar move from the left flank, Ghising broke through NTSC defense and fired a right-footer from inside the penalty box, this time on the first bar. The crowd had already started leaving as the match neared end of the regulation time but Ghising’s last minute heroics left them jumping inside the ground.
The Thapa siblings were the chief guests of the presentation as well. They awarded the winning team with certificates and gave the players their match fees. FNJ President Bishnu Nisthuri, National Sports Council Member Secretary Jivan Ram Shrestha and ANFA president Ganesh Thapa awarded certificates to the runner-up team and individuals and institutions rendering their support for the charity match.
Click here for the photo gallery of the event.