Article 1 — Introduction To The Writer
This is my introductory post. The nature of my posts would be on football as it is known in most parts of the world and soccer for others.
Let me tell you a story of how this love affair began. There had to be some influence from my family, to begin with, and that influential force came through my father. My earliest memory was waking up to watch the live telecasts of the World Cup in 1990 coming to a close. I had no clue on what was going on at that time, no idea on the teams and players, all I knew was that my father was watching a match that had just ended.
Post-Italia 90, he bought me a Subbuteo set as a gift and in that set, there were 2 teams, one in royal blue and the other in pale blue and white stripes. Based on the two teams that were in that set, I chose the royal blue one to be my first favourite team to the relief of my father. The royal blue team would be Italy while the other team would be Argentina. My father had developed a hatred for Argentina after the antics of Maradona in 1986 with his “Hand Of God” goal to knock out his beloved team, England. Since that moment, my father had labelled them cheats and despised them.
A year after, he introduced me to English football and likened me to Lee Sharpe of Manchester United. Of course, I don’t look anything like him but that is how I got connected to United and they became my 2nd favourite team. In that time, whenever they showed highlights of the old English First Division, they would show highlights of Serie A, at that time the strongest league in Europe.
I can’t recall now which one was shown first, all I remember was that it was shown concurrently and through that, I got acquainted with Italian football. I was told by my father of Baggio and Schillaci so I looked out for them when I watched the highlights.
I found Baggio and Schillaci at Juventus but the snake in Internazionale’s logo always captivated me. At that time, snakes became my favourite animal thanks to my favourite WWF wrestler, Jake “The Snake” Roberts. It wasn’t until 1992 when Schillaci left to join Inter did I became a fan of Inter and they became my third favourite team. Ironically, at the same time, Roberto Baggio captivated me and became my favourite player.
In the early 90s, we didn’t get to watch every English/Italian league match “live”. I had to rely on Teletext for the latest scores and news and watch a week old highlights show of my favourite leagues. For “live” matches, we had local Malaysian League matches to watch. The first-ever match I remember watching was the 1991 Malaysia Cup final featuring Johor. Johor won that and their trio of foreign players, Alistar Edwards, Abbas Saad and Ervin Boban made a big impression on me. Abbas Saad became my favourite and when he moved to join Singapore, I followed him.
As the years went by in the early 90s, we could watch one match per week “live” from Singapore either on Malaysian TV for English football or Indonesian TV for Italian football via an antenna that was painstakingly adjusted to get as clear as possible coverage of the match. I would be praying that my favourite team would be featured. Some days I was lucky and some days I was not. Most days, I was not even able to watch the matches because it was past my bedtime.
The craze for the Malaysian League in Singapore and Malaysia was huge at that time circa 1992–1994. I was a Singapore fan only in the Malaysian League. These were the only matches I could watch “live” weekly because of the timing of the matches and because I was so engrossed with the action on the TV, my eyesight was spoilt at the age of 10 years old and had to start wearing spectacles.
At that time, with some help from my parents, I started buying the Malaysia League and English Premier League sticker books. I saved the pocket money I got for school to buy stickers after school and would exchange them via post with my cousin in Malaysia. I collected player cards as well which was how my knowledge on the different players in the world grew.
As far as playing football goes, naturally, I started at home kicking a plastic ball around against my father. Later, my elder cousins in Singapore (they are at least a decade older than me) started training me on the basics of football. They missed one thing though and that was juggling the ball. I could never do that and I didn’t practice it enough at a young age. I had a trio of cousins from Singapore and the youngest of the lot, who was still 11 years older than me, would bring me along to play football with his friends and elder brothers. I held my own in those matches.
In school, playing football during PE lessons is a must as was playing during recess and occasionally after school. However, I came from a conservative family so while I could join the school football ECA as it was known then, I couldn’t join any social teams for the fear of picking up bad habits while mingling with strangers. Getting a good education was the priority in my household and my family was very strict on that.
I never made it to any school teams either in primary, secondary schools or polytechnic, which was anyways too late for me to breakthrough. I did have the honour and embarrassment of representing the Negri Sembilan Sikh Union juniors team in the 2000 Malaysia-Singapore Sikh Games also known as Gurdwara Cup. It was an honour to represent the state that I still call my home state until today but an embarrassment because we were humiliated in all the games. There were no proper coaching and selection sessions and on the basis of one friendly match, I was placed in the weaker B team with some players that couldn’t even kick a ball. We had absolutely no coaching, leadership and direction from anyone in the matches and were royally spanked in all the matches.
I believe with proper coaching and selection, I could have at least made it to the ‘A’ team. I might not be good enough to start but I could have still played some role as a substitute. Anyways that is water under the bridge now and it remains a bittersweet memory. I might be born and bred in Singapore but I have always seen Malaysia as my home country since I turned 12 years old and Negri Sembilan to be my home state. I am a half-Malaysian thanks to my mother.
I was always fascinated by the strikers and playmakers I watched and stubbornly chose to play as a striker from primary school until 2001 which was my last year in secondary school.
One day in a game between my classmates, I decided to try my hand as a defender after endless suggestions to move back and play as a central defender. From the first match onwards, I started loving this role however the change came too late in my life. With limited expert coaching but lots of game time and self-practice, I was about to have a good 4–5 years left playing the game until I was forced to “retire”.
My best days playing football was with a neighbourhood team called Team Dickhead from the age of 18–20 years old. We were not involved in any competition or league. We played regularly either on a small, uneven pitch known as the Dickhead Field, street soccer court or a former basketball court that we christened Psycho Court. On the 11-a-side pitch, we had regular friendly matches against the same, small group of 2–3 teams. I played my best football in the 11aside format here until I got a freak knee injury that I never recovered from.
From not being able to play football, I got into football team management and managed 2 teams before I got into league management as a career. I love writing analytical and opinionated pieces of football and that is what you will get from me.
