IT NEVER rains but it pours. PROMOTED Cash Plus Premier League team, St. Georges Sports Club, which is based in Buff Bay, Portland, must be getting that eerie feeling following the rather controversial circumstances in which they ended their last two matches at the Tony Spaulding Sports Complex and the Bran-court playing field at Clarendon Park.

Needless to say, they lost both, 1-2 in a 32-minute continuation for a game abbreviated at 1-1 after 58 minutes by an all-island power outage against Arnett Gardens, and 0-1 against the other team that won promotion to the league this season, Clarendon's Sporting Central Academy.

Ineligible

In the first match, Donovan Duckie and his men from Portland, who were minutes away from qualifying for the end-of-first round final and now occupy fifth position in the 12-team championship, were stung on two fronts - contending that Arnett Gardens used an ineligible player in Kwame Richardson, who netted the winner at the 86th minute; and secondly, that a finish on goal in the final minute was handled by an Arnett player on the goalline, and not saved by the goalkeeper as ruled by referee Hughill Thompson.

The Richardson case is quite interesting. When almost two-thirds of the game was played, Richardson was not part of the Arnett squad. On the face of it, logically speaking, one gets the impression that since the contest was continuing, only the players on the match card for the first game would have been ineligible.

Injured

However, Kevin Wilson, who had scored Arnett's goal in the first match on January 16, was injured in a match that followed and was deemed medically unfit.

The club sought permission to have Wilson replaced and got it from league officials on the grounds that a player deemed medically unfit could actually be replaced.

When checked for a clarification of the ruling pertaining to this issue, a highly-respected football official with FIFA ratings noted that there's no "hard and fast rule" for such a replacement.

Waterhouse may just pour on some more agony. St. Georges, which have done extremely well in its first season back after a long hiatus, have lodged an appeal. Thus, a decision is pending.

In that same game, in the final minute, St. Georges turned the ball on goal. It doesn't go in, but the Portland team's players, coaching staff and supporters are convinced it was prevented from scoring because it hit the hand of an Arnett player, who went side by side with the goalie for the ball.

They fume because they don't get what they feel should have been a penalty. Arnett think otherwise, and obviously, the referee.

Fracas

Then on Sunday, St. Georges' game at Sporting Central in Clarendon ended in a fracas involving match officials, security personnel and St. Georges players. Four of the Portland team's players were red-carded by the referee after the final whistle, including its captain and scoring ace, Damion 'Boy Boy' Harwood, along with Omar Davis, Oneal Clayton and Dwayne Holmes.

Davis was the first player red-carded, for verbal abuse of the referee. What is even sadder is what actually led to that situation.

The player complained that he was attacked by a spectator with a knife on the field after the game, sought assistance from a policeman, who never took up his case. Apparently, he turned his frustration on the referee.

Everybody else did the same thing in defending Davis, only to receive the same booking.

Next to Tivoli Gardens, who have eight out of a possible 10 victories, St. Georges, with seven wins in nine matches, have the most impressive home-match record in the CPPL.

However, they won't have the services of four key players when they take on a rampaging Waterhouse team at their revered home turf at Lynch Park, Portland, a parish noted for rain.