By Gordon Bennet
IT was late in September last year that a bus load full of Toti O35 football supporters made the trip through to Durban North to support the local legends at cup finals night against Juventus.
Toti lost the final after extra time and 100 minutes of pulsating football against a team made up of many former professionals. This result has made the local team determined to go one better this year and it all begun last Wednesday night away to Westville in the first round of the cup.
Manager Janos ‘Jose’ Molnar made a tactical switch on the evening by moving star player Dale ‘Stud’ Studinski upfront, a move that paved the way for Toti to dominate the first 20 minutes of the match and go 1-0 up when a through ball from the midfield was put away by Mark Shepherd. Westville, which had started slowly, soon came back into the game as they found acres of space down the left flank which gave makeshift right back Michael Chapman all sorts of headaches.
This prompted the normally subdued sweeper Vishnu Naidoo to become more vocal than usual on the evening, probably due to the fact that he found Gary ‘Papa’ Hutchison as his central defender and also playing out of position. Goalkeeper Conrad Rubino and left back Shaun Holmes however steadied the ship and made sure the defense stood solid as Toti took their one goal advantage into the half-time break. Westville pushed forward in the second half, prompting the manager to ask Mark ‘The General’ Bingham and Mathew ‘Tyredude’ Powell to sit deep in the midfield, a move which allowed the naturally attacking Craig Ngcobo and Roderick Sass to push forward. This strategy seemed to open up many opportunities for the men from the South Coast and Shepherd took full advantage by bagging a hat trick while big Craig struck one from 30 metres out to seal an emphatic 4-0 win.
Toti decided not to celebrate the win as it was only the first round of the cup and they have bigger aspirations this season, however the mooted celebrations were soon lifted up a notch as news filtered through to the change rooms that last year’s champions Juventus had been knocked out of the cup in the first round, meaning new cup champions would be crowned this season, so just maybe the Toti legends can go one better this year and bring home the cup.
Toti Over 35’s have drawn Crusaders at Hutchison Park in the next round of the cup to be played on Wednesday, 1 July starting at 7.30pm.
