The Rustomjee ‘Kenkre Champions League’ Finale

by Prasad bhutkar March 7, 2016

The Rustomjee ‘Kenkre Champions League’ finally came to an end after 10 spectacular Sundays. 6^th March was an eventful Sunday with the finale of the tournament followed by the Prize Distribution ceremony which was graced by the presence of the founder, the main man himself Mr Adik Kenkre, who delivered an exceptional speech. Accompanying Kenkre Sir were Mr Abhishek Yadav, the National Scouts Director for the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and Bollywood and South Indian film actress Ms Shriya Saran.

The day consisted of 33 games in total. An amazing initiative from the Kenkre Academy, the administrative staff as well as the organisers who decided to felicitate all the top 8 teams from every category which would boost everyone’s confidence and motivate them to turn out in large numbers next year as well.

The very first category, the Under 8 category, AB Champs vs St.Stanislaus, AB Champs registered a 4-2 win over Stanislaus. Ishan Jhingan and Aryan Jetha both scored braces for the Champs whereas Yohan and Clayton were on the score sheet for St.Stanislaus. Scottish Avengers defeated Bulls by 4-2. Shauryart Singh and Rehaan Bhat scored two goals each.

In the Under 10 category, FFA was crowned the U-10 Champions defeating OneWorld Bluhawks by a staggering 6-1 scoreline. There were six different scorers for FFA. Ziev Chheda, Jaffar Mala, Hamza Motiwala, Sumeet Kamath, Shayaan Nawab and Ali Khambaty all got on the score sheet. Vansh Mangtani managed a consolation goal for OneWorld Bluhawks.

Bosco Dragons thumped Kenkre Jaguars by 4-0 to win the U-10 Championship. It was a neck to neck battle until the Dragons opened the scoring and went on to dominate the game henceforth. They were crowned the U-12 Champions with a brace from Harsh Palande and Aryaan Jhunjhunwala.

The Under 14 first place vs Second place match reached the penalties stage when neither of the two teams were able to score in normal time. Bosco Antonovs managed to edge Real Mumbai by 7-6 on penalties making them the U-14 Champions.

Last but not the least. The Girls category saw Scarlet Raptors edge Super Strikers by 2-1. Renee Talati scored the brace that proved to be the winner whereas Deveshi Kumar scored for the Strikers. In the other, match Shooting Stars beat Super Strikers by 3-1. Deniese scored a brace and was complemented by Ira Gore. Khushi managed to get a consolation for the Super Strikers. Scarlet Raptor managed to beat Shooting Stars by 2-0. Shamika Bhandarkar and Renee Talati scored the goals making the Champion team in the girls’ category

With 10 days, 500 matches and over 300 goals scored the Kenkre Champions League 2016 surely was a massive hit. The success was there to be seen with the number of kids participating and the number of parents cheering them from the sideline. Kenkre Sir’s wonderful speech was an inspiration to everyone who was present for this event. A very important and special line said by Kenkre Sir, “There are a lot of people to support European leagues and their clubs. We need people to turn up more for the games in our country. Let us support the game of football and all the people trying their best to promote the game.” With the prize distribution ceremony, we finally concluded KCL 2016. Hope to see the numbers doubled next year!!