Roper Cup presents Manning final repeat

For the first time in its 55-year history, the Roper Cup will be a repeat of the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup final this year.

In that event, Kingston College and St George's College played one of the most memorable schoolboy football finals in recent vintage, an event that was dubbed 'The Battle of North Street.'

Kingston College stole the final in the 90th minute with a long-range shot from Nathan Thomas to register a 3-2 win over the Light Blues.

St George's College and Kingston College supporters, who are expected to swarm the Stadium East field on Saturday, are hoping that this year's Roper Cup showdown will be a preview of

the 2019 Manning Cup final.

The Roper Cup, a series of football matches between the schools' three football teams and past players, is a charity event to raise funds for the schools' football programmes and to honour past great St George's College coach Jack Roper.

The event is set to begin at 10 a.m., with the feature game between the Manning Cup teams starting at 4:30 p.m.

Special Match

Coach of Kingston College Ludlow Bernard, one of the three people who will be honoured on the day, plans to use the match to test his young charges against his close rivals.

"We lost more than half of last year's team, but I like the confidence that this team is showing, and we are hoping to test ourselves against them to see how we are," Bernard said. "It will be the first time for quite a bit of them putting on the Manning Cup gear, so we figure that it would be a good test for them to test themselves in front of spectators and to see how they handle that."

St George's College assistant coach Marcel Gayle will also be using the contest to test his team's readiness.

"Our preparation has been going well so far," Gayle said. "We have 60 per cent of last year's squad returning. It's always a friendly rivalry between both schools, and it doesn't matter the nature of the team that goes out there, spectators can expect good football."