Stung in their own backyard during a colourful Hammer and Tongues football festival recently, football upstarts St George's College have vowed to quickly regain their form and win the Association of Trust Schools championship this winter.

The Catholic-owned institution have been in a class of their own among their fellow private school peers in the ATS Northern League in which they are in pole position after four round of matches and look set to be crowned overall champions when they are likely to date the winners of the Southern League in July.

So far, Saints, as they call themselves, are unbeaten and commanding a runaway lead after hitting both Watershed and Westridge for five and sharing the spoils with St Ignatius. Today they host lowly-placed Gateway at their normally impregnable Ford Field looking at nothing short than consolidating their leadership in the division.

An ecstatic Humphrey Sakarombe, the teacher-in-charge of soccer at St George's, is confident they will not only see off Gateway, the school that produced former Zimbabwe international Edzai Kasinauyo, but will proceed to dismiss St John's College, Peterhouse and Lomagundi - their remaining league opponents.

The top team in the north heads for a champion of champions clash in July against their counterparts from the Southern League which comprises Petra High, Midlands Christian College, Kyle, Falcon, Christian Brothers College (CBC), Masiyephambili and South Eastern College (SEC) from Chiredzi.

"The guys are buzzing this year,'' beamed Sakarombe. "We have a strong and enthusiastic team that has proved invincible since the second term started. We are just waiting to put the disappointment of last weekend behind us and get back to our winning ways.''

The sports master was referring to the St George's Hammer & Tongues Invitational Tournament that the school staged last weekend and attracted 18 schools drawn from public, private, mission and academy institutions.

Although Saints reached the last four, they lost both the semi-final tie to namesake Catholic Saints of Mbare and the the third place play-off to army side Masvingo High by an identical 0-1 score.

Catholic Saints, an academy of school-going children sponsored by Father Johan Arimoso, who is the Rector of St George's College, were declared winners of the Under-20 competition after outpointing Prince Edward 3-0 in the final.

The other teams in attendance were Falcon, Christian Brothers College and Induna (all from Matabeleland), St Ignatius, Marondera High, St John's College, St John's High, Westridge, Nhowe Mission, Tynwald High, Kambuzuma Sunrise Academy (also funded by Father Arimoso), Peterhouse and Gateway.

Sakarombe said the tournament showed St George's serious resolve to expose their boys to more competition which would raise their level of competitiveness.

"We started off by touring Namibia in the pre-season and were silver medalists at a tournament that was won by Windhoek High School though we had finished the mini-league competition level on points only to lose out on goal difference,'' said Sakarombe.

Not expressly known for their football pedigree in the past, St George's however, have their own share of famous products who include Warriors star forward Matthew Rusike, who plays as a midfielder and striker for Helsingborgs IF in Sweden.

Others are Miguel Lemming, a retired former Arcadia United and Motor Action striker, and Elijah Soko who earned a soccer scholarship in the United States after turning out for local Division Two side Friendly Academy.

The school will be hoping for more such honours from Junior Zindoga an attacking midfielder in Upper Six who was named among the individual prize-winners at the two-day Hammer and Tongues tournament last weekend.