Referee Raymond Bogle was forced into the Christmas spirit early as he dished out cards left, right and centre at the Ferdie Neita Park on Wednesday night.

The Under-17 World Cup referee issued a total of seven cards, three red and four yellow and, had he not exercised a different kind of charity, could have issued another red as Portmore United and Harbour View played to a 0-0 draw in the National Premier League.

Harbour View captain Richard Edwards was ejected in the 56th minute for a foul on Tremaine Stewart, while substitutes Ricardo Morris of Portmore, who replaced Alanzo Adlam, and Romario Campbell of Harbour View got their marching orders in the 79th and 90+3 minutes, respectively, for retaliation.

Harbour View’s Nicholas Beckett and the Portmore trio of Upstan Edwards, Ewan Grandison and Eric Vernan received yellow cards.
With that result, Portmore United lost the top spot as they were edged out by Sporting Central Academy, who moved up to 18 points – the same as Portmore United, but with a better goal difference – following their 2-0 win over Boys’ Town.

Harbour View inched up a place as the point earned from the draw saw them climb to sixth with 11 points.

Disappointing play

“I am very disappointed, especially with the fact that after Harbour View went down to 10 men, we did not capitalise. Indiscipline caused us to go down to 10 men as well, but with young players, you will have that kind of thing. But we have to keep working to get things right,” Portmore United coach, Calvin Lewis, said at the end of play.

Harbour View’s assistant coach, Harold Thomas, was not happy with the fact that his team could not transfer “their control of the midfield to scoring chances”.

“There is room for improvement, especially in the finishing and the creation of goalscoring chances,” Thomas said.
“It is sad when a game such as this ends with three red cards. Apart from the players being culpable, I think it shows a loss of control on the part of the referee.”

The game that promised much due to the history of the teams and the depth of their squads did not live up to expectations and took about 20 minutes for a real pattern to develop, even though the competition was sometimes fierce. That the game would have been a physical one became evident early – in the first 11 minutes, three yellow cards were issued and just 15 minutes later, Portmore’s leading scorer Alanzo Adlam had to be substituted due to an injury.

Despite the focus on physicality, a number of opportunities were created with the better ones falling to Portmore United. In the 27th minute, Stewart, the game’s best player, got a through pass and slipped inside Christopher Harvey, but with just goalkeeper Michaud Barrett to beat, he steered his effort wide.

Thirteen minutes later, Stewart was the creator as his pass picked out Michael Spence on the edge of the 18-yard box, where he was taken out by Kemar Lawrence. The ball broke kindly for Eric Vernan, who blasted at Barrett from close range, but was unable to beat him.

Many replacements

Needing more purpose in their attack, Harbour View replaced Donovan Edwards with Kemeel Wolfe in the 48th minute, but were soon on the back foot as, eight minutes later, Edwards was ejected for his tackle on Stewart.

With the one-man disadvantage, Harbour View adopted a defensive posture and were constantly outnumbered when they managed an attack, as Fabian Taylor and Lamar Nelson were largely on their own. The visitors made a double change in the 71st minute. Taylor was replaced by Juvaune Benjamin and Nelson by Romario Campbell.

Portmore United could have found themselves down to 10 men when Vernan was not ejected for kicking Campbell in the 78th minute. Equity in numbers would be reached just a minute later when Morris slapped at Senior and was sent to the showers. Vernan was not too be outdone as, two minutes later, he picked up a yellow card for not retreating the required distance from an infringement to allow the free kick to be taken.

As the game wound down, Vernan got the chance to keep Portmore at the top of the table when he got a break on the defence and the goalkeeper, but instead of rolling the ball across the goal, he went for glory and blasted wide with his weaker left foot from an acute angle.

That was not to be the final bit of excitement in the game, as Campbell returned a slap with seconds to go and got his just due.