Not quite the famous Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities depicting London and Paris, but it’s a tale of two schools a few miles apart in Kingston heading in different directions in the ISSA Digicel Manning Cup.

Kingston College (KC), celebrating its 100th year next April is located on North Street while a few miles up the road at Heroes Circle is one of the oldest schools in Jamaica—Wolmer’s Boys, which is 295 years old.

The Maroon and Gold boys have won the Manning Cup 10 times, the last triumph was 30 years ago in 1994. The Fames Purples have won 16 trophies, the last in 2021.

Both schools started this year’s competition very well with a lot of hope and navigated through the first round effortlessly until the second round.

Kingston College have rattled up an impressive run winning 10 games out of 12, and has scored an impressive 80 goals and booked their spot in the last 16. KC whipped Hydel High 6-1 on Saturday and dismissed Wolmer’s Boys 3-1 on Tuesday. They play their final group game on Friday.

Head coach of KC, Vassell Reynolds, said his team has picked up momentum as planned. “We really wanted to get through the preliminary round and to up the tempo and standard of play for this round because we recognize that it would have been more challenging than the preliminary round,” said Reynolds. “I asked the boys from last week to let’s change gear. Let’s play up to our next level now. This is what this round requires and I thought that these two games, we did that pretty well.”

KC trailed early to an own goal in the second minute but they turned it around with three second-half goals in a dominant display.

“What we did in the second half shows us that we have some grit. We have some ability to hang on in the end and fight to perform to the best of our ability,” Reynolds said. “I knew in the final analysis, the fitness would tell and I know that would have created some opportunities where we have done that all games. Even the first half, it’s just a matter of making use of those chances and I thought we did very well in the last 25 minutes of this encounter.”

KC will play STATHS knowing they are already qualified but Reynolds want to be consistent. “We want to see how we manage that game as much as possible because we do believe in momentum and we just want to keep going. We don’t want to slack off. We want to keep going and so we’ll be approaching that game just as the last two,” he noted.

Meanwhile, things have gone awry for Wolmer’s Boys and they are on the brink of elimination, sitting at the bottom of the group with a point and will face Hydel High on Friday.

Head coach Jerome Waite knows the task on hand but said injuries are taking a toll on his team. “We still have another game to play and you know but the most important thing is to get back these players because injuries are the main factor now,” said Waite.

So, we just have to see how best we can get them back and it will be difficult because this Friday is the next game,” he noted. Wolmer’s battled to a 2-2 draw with STATHS after conceding a late goal and again things could have been so different had kept their advantage over KC while leading early.

“As you see, Kingston College was a very physical team and our youngsters tried their best. But at this level, schoolboys are accustomed to errors, as a result, KC got back and then they flow with the momentum,” Waite pointed out.

But like in the Tale of Two Cities, love and sacrifice can lead to redemption and resurrection. Wolmer’s Boys located next to where the Heroes of Jamaica are buried, will need divine intervention to survive while KC have flourished and have moved on to greener pastures.