Dharamshala: The District Football Association (DFA) team from Hoshiarpur defeated Rail Coach Factory (RCF) team from Kapurthala by a solitary goal to come out winners at the 24th All India Sheed Durga Mal – Dal Bahadur (DMDB) Gold Cup football championship that concluded here today.
Virender Singh form DFA Hoshiarpur struck in the 6th minute of the match to overcome the challenge by last year’s wining team KCF Kapurthala at the tournament.
Besides the trophy, the winners were handed a cash prize of Rs Rs 51000 and the runners up got Rs 31,000.
In all 14 teams from all over India participated in the tournament.
In the semi-final the Kapurthala team beat Union Bank of India, Mumbai 4-3 in a hard fought tie breaker match whereas the Hoshiarpur team beat RCF Mumbai 1-0 to find a berth in the finals.
For individual performances, Gurmeet Singh of DFA Hoshiarpur was declared the best goal keeper and Deepak Kirmani of UBI Mumbai was adjudged the best player of the championship.
For fair play throughout the tournament, UBI Mumbai was awarded a trophy.
The prizes were given away by Brigadier Govind Singh Rathore. Speaking on the occasion he said, “Dharamshala is fast emerging as a sports city.”
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
