It was the Fidel Richards show at Olympic Village last night as the Englishman came back to haunt his former club with a classy hat-trick which helped the Georgies to a 4-1 victory.

  HEIDELBERG UNITED 1 (VLAHOS 5')

SUNSHINE GEORGE CROSS 4 (GILMOUR 20', RICHARDS 58',75',79)

LINE UP: John(GK), Erdogan, Azzopardi, Gauci-Seddon, Muscat (c), Gilmour (Rocco 80'), Delic, Tsirtsakis, Trpcevski (Waterson 55'), Draycott (Neceski 67'), Richards

Sunshine George Cross lifted themselves off the bottom of the ladder with this emphatic 4-1 win over Heidelberg United. In a controversial match that saw 3 players take early showers and many more cautioned, it was the boys in red who came out on top in a very rare win under lights for the Georgies.
Heidelberg dominated the early procedings and went ahead after only 6 minutes, when a low cross from skipper Eric Vasiliadis found an unmarked Andy Vlahos who gave Martin John no chance at all. The Georgies were finding it difficult getting into the game and they did not help their cause by constantly giving the ball to the oppositiion. Heidelberg applied a lot of pressure and had the Cross defence working overtime with precise passes from both flanks. After a rare Georgies attack, the visitors won a corner from which they drew level after 20 minutes. Vasko Trpcevski's corner was aimed at the far post where it was headed back across the goal by Colin Azzopardi for Brett Gilmour to head the ball into the net.
The game evened up after this goal but it was still the home team that was the more positive in their play. This all changed in the space of 6 minutes either side of half time. After 44 minutes Heidelberg's Marinos was shown a red card for stomping on a Gilmor who was laying on the ground. Five minutes into the second half the referee stopped the game and showed a second red card to a Heidelberg player when captain Vasiliadis said something out of order. The Georgies had a perfectly good goal disallowed for offside, when a mazy by Dusko Delic opened up the Berger's defence. His low shot was saved by Acevski, and the rebound was tucked away by Draycott, who was mysteriously ruled offside. The Georgies took control with their numerical advantage and created several good chances to take the lead, before Fidel Richards scored his first goal after 62 minutes when put through on goal by Delic.
The Georgies were reduced to ten men when Adam Gauci-Seddon received his second yellow card after bringing down a Tricarico. The ten versus nine player game was very open and provided spectators with plenty of goal mouth action. It was Richards who scored the Georgie's third goal to make the game safe after 80 minutes with the goal of the game. His powerful low drive whistled into the net from just outside the penatly area.
Richards then completed his hat-trick against his former club when he added a fourth with only 4 minutes to go. Sunshine were awarded a penalty in the 90 minute when the Berger's goalkeeper Acevski upended Richards. Tony Neceski could not add to the score with the Heidelberg keeper saving his shot. There still was time for Tsirtsakis to surge onto a great pass and drive a low shot on target only for Acevski to pull off another great save. This was a great win for the Georgies and one that will instill a lot of confidence in their fight to avoid relegation.

YELLOW CARD: Gilmour 5'
RED CARD:  Gauci-Seddon 80'