Three thugs have been found guilty of trying to murder a man on a day that shamed Bermuda when violence erupted at Wellington Oval.

After a one-month retrial, it took the jury of nine women and three men just over three hours to find Ki-Roy Kinta Butterfield, Jahcai Morris and Tahir Nesta Bascome guilty of trying to kill Tarik Foster at the St. George?s stadium last April.

The jury agreed the men had ?murder in their hearts? when gangs of up to 40 youths clashed on the pitch.

Terrified women and children raced for cover and off-duty police officers feared for their lives in one of the worst displays of public fighting in living memory at a sporting event on the Island.

And the jury agreed the men ambushed the defenceless and grounded Mr. Foster like a ?pack of attacking dogs? ? Butterfield stabbing him in the neck with a knife, Morris slashing with a blade and Bascome chopping at him with a machete.

It was a ?miracle? the victim survived waves of attacks, the retrial was told, and the perpetrators only stopped after he ran for his life because they had assumed he was dead.

Butterfield was also convicted of attempted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm against Mr. Foster?s friend, Everest Trott.

All three defendants, now facing lengthy prison terms, were found guilty of possessing an offensive weapon and going armed in public to cause terror during Friendship Trophy football finals.

The verdict was greeted with a stunned silence in Supreme Court One when it was read just before 6 p.m.

There was no reaction from the men, all from the Ord Road area, although some relatives and friends who had packed the public gallery amid a heavy police presence could be heard crying as they left the building.

Relatives refused to comment on the guilty verdicts. One of the men sported a tattoo on his neck reading: ?ORC? , short for Ord Road Crew.

The verdicts mark the end of a Police investigation that saw nine men arrested in connection with the mayhem at Wellington Oval, St. George?s. Six have now been jailed for their role in the riot.

Larry Mussenden, Bermuda Football Association president, last night declined to comment on the jury?s verdict. But he told : ?Football will never stop. It will outlast violence.?

As Butterfield, Bascome and Morris, now due to be sentenced in December, were led from court by prison officers last night, their lawyers indicated the three were considering appealing the convictions.

After the verdict, victim Tarik Foster spoke of his relief the long-running legal action ? the first trial was aborted in January when a juror fell ill ? was finally at an end.

Mr. Foster, from St. George?s, told : ?I?m just glad it?s over and I?m glad to see my mama smile.?

He told the trial he would never forget the faces of the men who tried to kill him.

Asked if he was pleased the men who tried to take his life were now behind bars, he added: ?I had to do what I had to do for my mother?s sake.

?I hope I?m on the road to recovery. I still have pain in my hand and I still can?t write properly, so it?s hard for me to find a job.?

The high-profile trial heard from 20 witnesses during the course of four weeks. And evidence included a graphic video ? captured by a spectator ? showing the violence, as well as pictures of the culprits taken at the stadium.

The jury rejected concerns about circumstantial evidence and witnesses who, the defence said, could not reliably identify their clients after watching the DVD and looking at the photographs.

Before the verdicts were announced, Puisne Justice Carlisle Greaves told the jury there were inconsistencies in witness accounts ? but told them to focus on the evidence in a ?calm and dispassionate? way.

Butterfield told the court he was acting in self-defence, after his brother was knocked unconscious by a piece of wood in the scuffle that triggered the scenes of terror.

He claimed he was unarmed when he went to tried to disarm Everest Trott ? and denied he ever wounded Mr. Foster.

Morris said he was hit on the head and provoked, but had turned his knife to the blunt side so Mr. Foster in a bid to scare, not injure, the victim.

Bascome claimed he was not there and the charges were a case of mistaken identity.

But yesterday?s verdicts mean the jury dismissed these arguments, and agreed with the prosecution that the three men left the Ord Road area on April 4, 2004, armed and intent on using their weapons.

Senior Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney said that when a fight broke out between Butterfield?s brother and Mr. Foster a few minutes into the second game of the day, this gave the three men the perfect opportunity to pounce. They left an unconscious Mr. Foster needing hospital treatment for five stab wounds and chops to his arms.