Santosh Trophy 2009: Manipur beat Railways

In a keenly contested battle of the pre quarter final match 3 between Railways and Manipur of the 63rd National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy, played at Thiruvallore on Sunday, Manipur played an attacking game right from the start and went on to win the match 4-1 to enter into the quarter final round.
The victors never allowed their opponents to take a control of the game and drew the first blood in the 19th minute as Subhash Singh was left unmarked in the left flank and his powerful shot left Railway custodian Ehtesham Ahmed diving in vain.

As the match progressed Manipur started having better bail control and kept on attacking at the rival den. In the 40th minute Riesangi Vashum was in action as thebal rebounded off Railways custodian Ehtesham as he tried to save a shot from Subhash Singh. Vashum utilised the situation well and tapped it in to give his team a 2-0 lead.
With a 2-0 lead as the match entered into the lemon break, Manipur could sniff the victory. And as expected in the 79th minute they extended the lead as Vashum headed the ball in to give his a team a 3-0 lead.

Railways bounced back immediately as in the 80th minute they were awarded a penalty and Nalanda Chakravarthy utilized the opportunity to reduce the lead to 3-1 but it was too late for them as Manipur won the match comfortably.

From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Sunday 31 May 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.