Imphal, December 24 2008: Brilliance of the Assam Rifles, Tezpur custodian S Lokeswor during play and penalty shoot-out ensured ninth CC Meet title for the para-military team who edged out local favourite NEROCA, Shangakpham 4-2 via tie-breaker in the final of the 52nd Sir Churachand Singh KCSI CBE Memorial Football tournament at Khuman Lampak Main Stadium today. Watched by a capacity crowd the final match was fiercely contested by both sides even though poor marksmanship robbed the spectators cheering moments. With the scoreboard remaining unchanged till the end of normal period penalty shoot-out was applied to decide the winners which the AR team eventually triumph through calm nerve of the penalty takers as well brilliance of Lokeswor who parried a shot from O Pitler. H Chakravorti was the other culprit on the Shangakpham side as his attempt (4th) sailed over the crosspiece. With four AR players successfully converting from the spot the fifth was rendered inconsequential. While S Thomas and Th Surjit were the successful converters for the Shangakpham side, shots from O Kuber Singh, L Shanta Singh, T Pijendra Singh and Omkar Rana beat S basant under the NEROCA bar to easily grab the prestigious trophy as well as top prize of Rs 60,000. NEROCA had to be content with the runners-up booty of Rs 25,000. Apart from today�s triumph, teams of the Assam Rifles had won the CC Meet tournament titles in 1950, 52, 54, 57, 59, 68, 69 and 1970.In the 1960 edition of the competition, the AR team finished runners-up. NEROCA, on the other-hand, won the title in 2000 and secured the runners-up position two years later.

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