The Gambia Under-20 football team arrived home to a tumultuous welcome yesterday as fans thronged roadside to greet the parading players in their bus.
The champions travelled via Farafenni where soldiers at the Infantry Battalion cheered them across the Senegambia bridge to Soma. The convoy then took the south bank road passing waving bystanders along the way to Mandina-ba where the parade got into higher gear.
From there, the convoy, with vice captain Tijan Marr raising the gigantic cup in the lead car, drove into Brikama attracting bigger crowds of appreciating onlookers who waved and followed them across many streets and to the Gambia College. The boys then drove to Westfield and to Garba Jahumpa Road before arriving at Football House where they were addressed by the GFF president Lamin Kaba Bajo. Meanwhile, there was a sad twist to the end of the celebration when a car carrying half a dozen people crashed into the water at the Cape Point bridge.
Eyewitnesses told The Standard several people were wounded one of them, seriously in the leg while a man called Master is missing. Family members of the missing man said they could not reach him on his phone and he was not seen at any hospital as at last night. A fire and rescue service crew was seen leaving the scene as darkness falls. It is not clear whether they have conducted any search of the water beneath the bridge where many feared the missing man might have fallen. Eyewitness said the car was among those at the rear of the convoy and it is likely that those in front of the convoy may not have been aware of the accident.