1976 FC Phoenix are the 2022 Ascension Tobago Football Association Premier League champions.
The former TT Super League club ended the run of giant-killers Carnbee/Mt Pleasant to capture the title, winning Tuesday’s final 3-1 at the Dwight Yorke Stadium, in Bacolet. Signal Hill FC ended the season in third spot following a 3-2 victory over to eventual fourth-placed Stokely Vale.
Of the 20 teams which began the 2022 Ascension season, Carnbee/Mt Pleasant ended as the hottest and eliminated both Eastern Conference winners and two-time defending champions Sidey’s FC and Central Conference winners Stokely Vale, on the way to the final.
There they met familiar rivals Phoenix, the only unbeaten team in Tobago and winners of the Western Conference, where Carnbee/Mt Pleasant surged from mid-division to end the regular season in third spot, after a series of late-season victories.
The final was competitive and tense, with eight players cautioned for either unsportsmanlike behaviour or dissent, among them Phoenix goalscorer Mickaeel Jem Gordon, Jabari Francis and captain Leandro Williams, along with the Carnbee/Mt Pleasant trio of Navelle Roach, Emmanuel Cox and Dominique Roberts.
Phoenix led 1-0 at half-time, their goal coming from Gordon’s 43rd minute free-kick. Carnbee/Mt Pleasant equalised at 1-1 in the 67th minute, and with neither team having an advantage at the end of regulation time, the match went into extra-time.
There, Phoenix netted twice, with Jariel Arthur (100th) and Ethan Thomas (113th) scoring within three minutes of each other to give their club the title.
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