Srinagar: The experienced and under strength J&K Bank FC bounced back strongly to beat Downtown Heroes FC in the match for third place in the 19th Police Martyrs Memorial tournament at Synthetic Turf TRC Ground here on Tuesday.
The match was for the third place in the tournament after both J&K Bank FC and Downtown FC had suffered defeats in the semifinals. While J&K Bank suffered defeat via tie-breaker against FC1, the Downtown Heroes FC suffered 1-2 defeat against STFC Natipora.
In the match for third place, J&K Bank FC stars used their all the experience to dominate the opponents from the start. It was in the seventh minute of the match, Tawfeeq gave J&K lead by scoring a brilliant goal. Only 20 minutes later in the 25th minute, Furqaan made it 2-0 for J&K Bank FC. At half time J&K Bank FC were leading by 2-0.
In second half, J&K Bank continued to dominate and utilize all their experience and should have scored more goals. As the match progressed, Downtown FC started to get into its rhythm. It looked like, the lack of quality bench strength will take toll on Bank FC. Parvaj scored goal for Downtown FC in the 74th minute to reduce margin to 2-1. They continued to press for the equalizer but the experienced defense line of Bank FC held on. J&K Bank emerged winner by 2-1 and secured third place in the 19th Police Martyrs Memorial tournament.
The win against Downtown FC is likely to taste sweeter for the J&K Bank FC as they had suffered defeat against the side in Premier League competition. The highly successful football team of J&K, is under strength with management failing to recruit new players in the team. While all the teams operating have players in the range of 20 to 24 in the squad J&K bank FC have only 15-16 players with no replacement available on the bench.