East Bengal players after winning the under-19 league title at the Mohun Bagan ground on Tuesday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Calcutta: East Bengal annexed the first Krishanu Dey Memorial under-19 football league title, beating Ever-Ready Association by a brace at the Mohun Bagan ground on Tuesday. Anupam Dutta in the 73rd minute and Joydeep Debnath in the 89th minute scored.

The first session was competitive, with the less-fancied Ever-Ready dominating proceedings, but they failed to get the vital break. East Bengal, on the other hand, did force a few chances but even they could not make it to the target. For that they had to wait way past the barren first half.

In the 73rd minute, Manab Bhandari, advancing up the right, floated the ball into the six-yard box for Anupam Dutta, standing unmarked. Anupam just pushed the ball home. A minute from time East Bengal sealed the fate of the match when Joydeep Debnath capitalised after Ever-Ready goalkeeper Biswanath Bhadra failed to grip the ball properly. Ayan Chowdhury of East Bengal emerged the highest scorer with six goals. Ayan scored a brace in the semi-final against arch-rivals Mohun Bagan at the Salt Lake Stadium on Monday. Gautam Dey of Ever-Ready was adjudged the Player of the Tournament.

The winners were richer by Rs 1 lakh while the losers received half that amount. The Indian Football Association (IFA) will felicitate the winners at a function on Thursday.

TEAMS

East Bengal: Pulak Roy, Manab Bhandari, Sukomal Santra, Dinesh Kumar, Mohan Sarkar, Joydeep Debnath, Dhrmendra Dergaon (Wilson Kumar), Prasun Chakraborty, Dipanjan Das, Ayan Chowdhury, Abhijit Goswami (Anupam Dutta).

Ever-Ready: Biswanath Bhadra, Bhupendra Lama, Surajit Chakraborty, Tapan Giri, Gautam Dey, Sujit Ghosh, William Pradhan, Haradhan Dolui, Ratan Das, Pallab Manna, Nima Tamang (Gopal Pal).

Referee: Tarun Pal.