Southern Railway beat Hindustan Eagles 1-0 in the CFA senior division football league at the Nehru stadium on Saturday. It has now moved to sixth, ahead of Chennai City FC, with 10 points from six games.
Eagles, though, created chances aplenty. In the first half, Francis crossed the ball into the box twice from the right wing. The first went unpicked while S. Nandha Kumar’s shot off the second was amiss.
Shine John’s free-kick from the right wing spilled off the clutter at goal-mouth to Nandha Kumar, whose shot found the goalkeeper. The closest chances were from Francis and Izoalex Chimezie; Shine’s aerial ball from the right was headed at the cross bar by Francis while Chimezie hit the left-post off the rebound.
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Another instance in the second half saw the Railway goalkeeper, K. Sachidhanandhan, block the ball twice within seconds; first, off Nandha Kumar from the inside-left, and then immediately after, off the rebound, from K.P. Muhammed Miqdad, who was close to the box on the right.
Southern Railway fouled twice initially — C. Sirajudeen with a handball, before which R. Rajesh flared with a faint jab at his marker S.K. Aravinthan and was let off unbooked. While Eagles were more enterprising, Railway came up with occasional, mild threats of incursions.
It was one such foray that paid off in the 38th minute, when Sirajudeen streamed in unmarked and stopped abruptly a couple of feet from the box to slot a long shot in as the defenders ahead and the goalkeeper were caught unawares.
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The results: Senior div.: Southern Railway 1 (C. Sirajudeen 38) bt Hindustan Eagles 0.
First div.: Income Tax 5 (Saravana Kumar 4, Venkatesan 14, Vigneswaran 24, Ameerudeen 26 & 41) bt FCI 1 (Tamilarasan 11).