Kallang and the Malaysia Cup

Drinks, kueh chee, curry puffs. Drinks, kueh chee, curry puffs.

The constant aural bombardment of your senses at the terraces, the colourful balloons carried by a section of the crowd around the players' entrance where they would be released the moment the team started marching out from the tunnel and the kaleidoscope all around creates a ruckus and oh what a carnival!

It was a sight to behold, 60,000 screaming fans at the National Stadium during the Malaysia Cup days gave us the intimidating Kallang Roar where when the Roar reverberated around the stadium together with 60,000 pairs of stomping feet provided our team with the inspiration, courage and desire to fight and win. Those were the unforgettable days of the Malaysia Cup where every fan recognised each player by their individual, distinct style of play.

Eric Paine with his stylish dives, Hasli Ibrahim for his sliding tackles, S. Rajagopal "The Camel" with his galloping runs on the left flank and banana kicks and inswingers from corner kicks. The hardworking and courageous Robert Sim, Syed Mutalib's crunching tackles where you can almost hear bones cracking, Samad Alapitchay's and Seak Poh Leong's leadership as captains. Lim Teng Sai whom Pele came, saw him and called him the unpolished gem of Singapore soccer. A defender supreme who would sometimes play to the gallery.

Midfield maestro Zainal Abideen who controls the pace of the game so smoothly you wonder if you can find another like him and we would later have others like V. Khanisen who seemed to have three lungs and the more attacking instincts of Hashim Hosni. Then there was the most stylish and elegant player of all time Mohamed Noh on the right flank with his silky runs, crosses and dummies. Dollah Kassim, the "gelek" king though having pencil like legs could bend the ball around a wall floating it to the top corner of the net from 25 metres. Of course we must never forget Quah Kim Song who whenever he has the ball at his feet, you feel that something is going to happen especially around the penalty box.

Other younger players who came in later were Lim Tang Boon, Leong Kok Fann, Au-Yeong Pak Kuan, Terry Patmanathan, V. Sundramoorthy, Fandi Ahmad, Edmund Wee and David Lee. Edmund was a supreme talent who could gather a ball from a corner kick with one hand. Such was his supremer confidence while David was almost unbeatable snatching crosses that came in. Too many to mentioned them all. Both Pak Kuan and Terry were supreme penalty speciaslists who placed their shots rather than whack them. Pak Kuan always to the goalie's left and Terry always to the right. 

I had the good fortune to witness great goals like the free kicks from Dollah, Rajagopal scoring the the corner, M. Kumar's long dipping shot into goal, scorchers from Mat Noh. The most amazing goal ever I saw came from Dollah vs Pahang when he raced towards goal, drew the goalie out then pretending to shoot sent the goalie diving to his right while dragging the ball with his right foot, turned the other way and pretending to shoot fooled the defender who slided in a hurry and then tapping into an empty goal with a few bodies spread around the penalty box.

During half time, they will usually blared on the loud speakers the regular dose of music or song like the Stylistics - I'll Give You Everything But My Love, Love Is Blue and El Bimbo. I have always love El Bimbo and only knew the name of this piece many years later.

In recent times and over the years, I have personally met up with some of these players such as Lim Teng Sai, Terry Patmanathan and quite a few times eating at the same table with S. Rajagopal and most recently Seak Poh Leong and Quah Kim Song at a golf fund raising event for Eagles Golf for Geyland United.

They were all heroes to me whom I would stay back in school to watch them train at the old Victoria School ground at Tyrwhitt Road. I would even watch NFL games especially when Geylang Int'l, Tampines Rovers, Farrer Park United and Toa Payoh United played.

We are lacking moments like these - Malaysia Cup soccer games at Kallang and players of the calibre of the bygone era where people including silly me and friends who found it fun to go queueing over night for tickets in advance for the big games vs Selangor. Those were the days when car parks at the National Stadium were full and late comers would just park their vehicles on the road side ignoring the definite summons. I quit attending for awhile and did my last stint during the few years where we had two foreigners playing in our team. There was Craig Foster and Warren Spink and later Abbas Saad and Alistair Edwards all from land of Oz.

Its things like these - looking forward to Malaysia Cup games where the rivalry was really different from say the S-League or looking forward to the next Bruce Lee movie, etc. that help us to forget about all those woes like the current financial and economic crisis.

The other week I communicated with some VS old boys including one who was a Choo Seng Quee protege Benajmin Foo Koon Yong who is still playing regularly every Sunday at VS's synthetic pitch with a bunch of solid guys who were trained to ignore pain and age. I gave it up some two years ago after finding that injuries are much harder to shake off and longer to recover. Since then I have switched to much smaller balls.