21 July,2009 08:54 AM IST | | Clinton Vaz
RN Poddar (Santacruz)u00a0 rubbed salt into the wounds of an already frustrated Greenlawns High School (Worli), who had to wait for almost an hour for their opponents to arrive, by beating them 3-0 in an U-16 Nike-MSSA inter-school match at Azad Maidan yesterday.
The Poddar team's bus broke down which resulted in them reaching 40 minutes late for their scheduled 10 am kick-off. Fortunately for them though,u00a0 as it was a valid reason, organisers MSSA decided to wait instead of awarding a walkover to Greenlawns who had arrived as early as 8.30 am. MSSA officials had a discussion with Greenlawns coach Sandeep Chavhan who agreed to wait for Poddar, a decision he later regretted.
Just as Greenlawns were about to leave the venue, the Poddar lads trooped in and took to the field immediately, without any warm-up and without even following a uniform dress code.
Jersey problems
The Poddar side was unsure of their participationu00a0 in the tournament and were a late entry due to which theu00a0 jerseys they had ordered had not yet arrived. However, when it came to the football, they were completely in sync. Avijeet Thakur, Aditya Khattar and Anupam Agarwal scored a goal each as Poddar emerged 3-0- victors.
Greenlawns coach Chavhan said, "We almost got a walkover. Frankly we weren't expecting them to come and our boys were very happy thinking we won. I now wish we had left five minutes earlier."
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