Dawda Bah Scores to Propel Hjk to the Summit in Finland

The Daily Observer (Banjul)

Babucarr Camara

17 June 2011

After helping the Scorpions secure a 1-0 win over Gabon in an international friendly last week, Gambian international Dawda Bah was instrumental on Wednesday scoring the second goal to lead his Finnish champions HJK Helsinki to a 5-1 win at home to RoPS, a result that saw the Helsinki giants regain top spot in the table.

The former Banjul Hawks and KPV Kokkola forward has been an instrumental player for HJK in the past couple of seasons which both culminated with the team winning the title in each of those seasons and the Gambian continues to match the standards sets by himself with yet another strong start to the 2011 campaign. The goal that came in the 67th minute of the second half is the third time that Dawda Bah find the back of the net for Helsinki in ten league appearance so far this campaign and he will be in buoyant mood when the team kick start their European adventure in the second round qualifying of the 2011/12 UEFA Champions League playoffs.

The score line was somewhat deceiving with the fact that there was little to separate the two sides in the first half of football which ended in a goalless stalemate. But HJK stamped their authority in the second half as they took the lead just four minutes into the restart through Sorsa and never look back from that moment. The Gambian was next to be on the score sheet to open the floodgates for three goals in just ten minutes of football. After Bah made it 2-0 in the 67th minute, Pukki added a third three minutes later before Sadik opened up a four goal cushion in the 77th minute.

With time running out, Rafinha made sure that HJK were not done yet scoring from the penalty spot in the 88th minute to give his side a 5-0 lead but there was still time for RoPS to pull a goal back in stoppage time for a final 5-1 score line. With the win, the two times defending champions HJK Helsinki opened up a two points lead at the top of the standings with 24 points from 10 games, two points better than second place Inter Turku who played a game less.

Elsewhere in the top flight of Finnish football, Demba Savage played 74 minutes as FC Honka grabbed a late equalizer to draw 1-1 away to Abdoulie Paco Corr’s struggling VPS Turku. Honka is sixth on the twelve team table with 12 points from nine games, four points ahead of Paco’s tenth place VPS. Paco didn’t feature in the game even though no reason was forwarded.

A level below in the lower echelons of Finnish football, Ken Malamin Jammeh continued his consistent run in the KooTePee team playing another 90 minutes in a 2-1 win at OPS. Ken Jammeh has played in each of KooTeePee’s seven games so far this season and his strong performance at the back has catapulted the team from the bottom of the table to third on with 16 points, one adrift of leaders PK-35 following a slow start.

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