Football action at the Bankers' Games 

BANKERS’ GAMES

In a weekend of mixed outcomes, defending Champions, Skye Bank moved seven points clear of the rest of the pack while Stanbic Bank defeated last year’s runners-up, Fidelity Bank to rejuvenate their hitherto weak campaign in the 2012 Nigeria Bankers Games (NBG).

Playing two matches on the trot, Saturday and Sunday to fill fixture gaps, Skye Bank’s Kayode Abdulrasheed remained the pearl in the squad scoring a total of four goals in the two games and bringing the team’s total points to 12 from four games.

In Group B, First Bank went two points clear of Standard Chartered Bank following a 1-0 off thumping of ECOBANK, the only team that is yet to win a point in the tournament.

The loan goal came off the boots of Oluwatosin Faniyi, his third in the tournament.

A 5-1 tearing down that came with a landmark 51 total goals record for Skye Bank’s Abdulrasheed in the first match on Saturday seemed to have drilled a hole in Union Bank’s spirited challenge for the leadership of the group which has the defending champions now comfortably perched at the top.

Abdulrasheed recorded the first hat-trick of the 2012 tournament and also won a penalty that was converted by Rotimi Saka to complete the Stallion Boys’ misery. Ismaili Sani was the other scorer for Skye Bank on the day while Kayode Oderinde nicked a consolatory goal for the losing team.

Union Bank’s defeat and a subsequent loss by Fidelity Bank to Stanbic meant the group’s other tickets are still up for grabs by any of the teams including Enterprise and Sterling Banks that ended their affair in a scoreless draw to continue the tournament still searching for a win.

On Sunday, Skye Bank and Enterprise Bank returned to the pitch. Enterprise Bank needed a win to go 2nd and a draw to leapfrog Stanbic IBTC in 3rd, but Kayode Mustapha Abdulrasheed was on hand to score his 5th of the tournament and take his tally to 52 overall. He remains top of the scorers chart.