With championship league qualification up for grabs Ansar took on Cathcart at Glasgow Green with the winner almost certainly going into the Championship.

Glasgow Ansar v Cathcart AFC – Championship Qualification Final

Well, this is what football is all about, isn’t it? When it really matters, when everything is on the line, some teams crumble and others find that extra gear. Glasgow Ansar, quite simply, found theirs when they needed it most.

The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher

Going into this final group match, the mathematics were beautifully simple yet brutally unforgiving. Cathcart AFC sat pretty in second with a win and a loss, while Ansar languished at the bottom with a draw, a defeat, and a worrying minus-three goal difference. Championship qualification hung in the balance – and that’s when football becomes truly compelling.

First Half – Building the Foundation

What struck onlookers immediately was how different this Ansar looked from their previous outing. The ball retention was crisp, purposeful – they were winning those crucial first and second balls that often decide tight matches like this. It was the complete team performance that had been missing, and you could sense it from the opening whistle.

Both sides carved out opportunities. The final third work from both teams lacked that decisiveness in the final third to provide anything meaningful.

Second Half – When Champions Are Made

This is where the magic happened. Ansar didn’t just step up a gear – they found a completely different level. The dominance was so complete that even club legend Mintet felt confident enough to try his luck from 25 yards.

The opening goal was a thing of beauty, short passing from left to right and back again, creating space where none existed. Then Babee provided the perfect pass out to the left for Aqib.

What followed was pure striker’s instinct. Aqib twisted his marker inside out, drove into the box with real purpose, and from the tight of angle, found the net.

The second goal came when Rosebank, under pressure, were forced back to their defenders on the halfway line. But Aqib never switched off. He closed down with the intensity of a man possessed, forcing hurried passes back to the goalkeeper.

As the keeper attempted to clear, there was Aqib, throwing himself into the path of the ball, blocking it, and watching it bounce perfectly back into the net for his second. That’s not luck – that’s a striker who never stops believing something will drop for him.

Aqib was looking back to his best, one moment saw him shield the ball, drive through the middle under two challenges, pass the ball for a teammate to shoot and leave both challengers needing treatment.

The Perfect Finale

With fresh legs being brought on, the rest of the half was closed out with continued brilliance on and off the ball from man mountain, Man of the Match Bendy, body on the line defending from Saka and very good counter attacking chances that on another day puts this game out of sight. The icing on the cake, with the other results going their way, Ansar qualified in the top 2 and with a place in the Championship. A tough season awaits but team performances like this will prove Ansar can compete.

Man of the Match: Captain Shahid