More signatures

More signatures were gathered during the charity match in aid for Charmaine Lim's cancer treatment.

I finally got hold of former Geylang United and ex-Balestier Khalsa coach Jang Jung after missed him on several occasions.

Rudy Khairon was walking behind me after Jang Jung signed the poster, and I asked, "Hang on, let see if you were inside the poster?", "Yeah, I think so... " said the former national midfielder.

But the agony was the missing out of Hasnim Haron who is nippy as ever as in his playing days when he left the ground early after the match...

[Event] CHARITY MATCH IN AID OF 4-YEAR-OLD CHARMAINE LIM’S CANCER TREATMENT

Was late for the game anyway but it was a good turn-out for this charity match organized by former Singapore international Rafi Ali, as thousands of fans turned out at the Tampines Stadium to catch stars of the yesteryears to parade their skills in aid for the four-year old cancer patient Charmaine Lim.

PICTURES AT THE END OF THE MATCH

Show of appreciation at the end of the day

Cheque presentation to Charmine's mother Mrs Cynthia Lim (in pink)

Part of the crowds who help in the charity event by paying an admission fee of $10

This one for the album

Short scribe on Home U's misadventure in Hong Kong (edited)

Got a call from my friend, Bryan Lim who saw the match where Home United were trounced 4-0 by Hong Kong powerhouses - South China AA in the AFC Cup knock-out stage.

Here are some of the extracts from his posting filed from Hong Kong...

"I just came back from the game played @ the HK Stadium.A passionate & capacity crowd of about 8K watched the humiliating defeat. Here's the starting lineup (3-5-2): Lionel-Rosman,Mani & Hiek-Dickson,Shadan,Syed Fadhill & Perez-Lodovick & Azhar. Sivaji(as usual left an orthodox leftback,Jumaat on the bench), keeping faith with the oft crticized rotation system.

The pitch was slippery after showers in the afternoon and an hour before the game. Weather was humid."

"The SC supporters sitting in front of me asked if I was from Singapore. We had a chat & they admitted that HU was a good team but lacked a finisher. Frankly,HU's porous defence made 2 fatal errors which made SC looked gd. they were very impressed with Dickson. By the way, you may have also realised that Jiayi is missing. Has he been transferred to Tampines already???"

"So what excuse is Sivaji going to use this time? Too much rest???"

For more detailed report by Bryan, please log on to this link.

And thanks Bryan for the time, effort and most importantly - the passion (your effort had made some mainstreamers hide behind the curtains...hahaha)

Well Done...

Managed to source this youtube clip on the Home United's defeat to South China (in Cantonese though)...

and see for yourself how skipper Mani's heroics towards the end denied South China from scoring a few more!!

Come Clear and Balance it!!

Two news broke out today which had been circulated around the fraternity lately.

(Picture from "Today") "Where are you, Bryan?"

Young Australian striker Bryan Soane had left Balestier Khalsa over contractural dispute, while management reshuffling took place in Sengkang Punggol saw coach Jorg Steinnebrunner and chairman Ben Lim walked out of the club.

Based on both stories by TODAY, the details seems to be one-sided as public were only given one half of the stories, while scratching their scalp why the other half, being the concerned parties, were not being quoted or giving their side of the stories.

(Picture from "Today") "Where are you, Jorg?"

I was told efforts were made to get into contact with the gentlemen but with not much success.

Apparently, the gentlemen felt it's not time to spill the beans or they just simply don't want to dwell on it?

Whatever it may be, I felt the fans have every right to know the inside out of both stories rather than having their imagination running wild by going on speculating aimlessly.

(Picture from "Today") - Saswa spilled the beans last year...

Ironically, they should have did what former Sengkang coach Saswadimata Dasuki did last year when the ex-national defender came out in public to refute claims that he "went on leave to sort out some personal matters" when in actual fact he was told to "do so by the club".

So what if it may be the case that can of worms would be opened if these gentlemen decide to let go everything off their chest but one thing for sure is that some questions shall never be swept under the carpet.

Kung-Fu Friendly as Cubs beat the Indonesian U23...

(P.S:Things were made so easy now since the opening of the Pioneer MRT station, located within strolling distance of the Jurong West Stadium.)

The Cubs redeemed themselves after that Malaysian thrashing by beating the Indonesian U23 at the Jurong West Stadium, although they clearly knew it very much that much work needed to be done if they want to be seen as a favourite of the year-end SEA Games.

2-0 was the scoreline as the Cubs finished off the Indonesian guests with two well-taken goals in each half but not without any incident that made the match a mockery of that as a friendly with four players (two from Singapore, one on-field and one bench player of the visiting side) being sent off by referee Abas Daud.

PICTURES FROM THE MATCH
The only "friendly" moment of the game?

The Cubs celebrate their second goal of the night...

Fans at the terraces.

"Cool it guys!! it's just a friendly match"

Short Take of the League Cup Final

DPMM fans before the game (snapped outside the Stadium)

"Expectations are high and the whole Brunei are exciting about it." said Aiqbal, a fan specially flew from Brunei to catch Brunei DPMM in action in their first quest for sliverware in their maiden S.League season.

According to him, there were a total of approximately 500 fans , comprised of local-based and visiting Bruneians to cheer their team on.

"I go for a one-nil win for my team," added Aiqbal who attributed the success of DPMM to the "enjoyment" everybody is deriving from their current fine form and said coach Vjeran Simunic is a "fan's man" in the old-rich sultanate.

BEFORE THE GAME

The calm moment before the kick-off at tunnel

The trophy they are fighting for

The DPMM fans made their presence felt.

THE GAME IN SUMMARY

Everybody knew very well that in any Cup final match, the most important thing is to grab the lead as soon as possible, not to be lagged behind for large part of it and so as to keep pace with one another throughout the 90 minutes.

With that theory in mind both SAFFC and DPMM gave the fans at the Jalan Besar Stadium an epic start of a memorable game.

Barely fifth minute into the game, the Warriors' skipper Aleksandar Duric headed home off a Hafiz Osman's cross from the right before Croatian defender Rene Komar struck from outside to level the scores in the ninth minute.


End-to-end actions dominated large part of the first half as fans were treated to pacey game of football.

However, it was a rather tepid affair in the second half as compared to the first as both teams were much more cautious in their play.

Fair to say though both DPMM and SAFFC had their fair share of chances to seal the game but poor finishing and stout defence stood their way.

So much to the dismay of some fans, the match went into extra time.

And being the most cruel way to decide the outcome – Brunei DPMM snatched the League Cup after the match headed to the ultimatum penalty-shootout following the same scoreline after the extra 30 minutes of play.

THE PRESS CONFERENCE

"We were lucky and we didn't play well as a lot of players were playing according to instructions and not taking anything away from DPMM who were very well-organized and played well." said SAFFC coach Richard Bok (left in above picture) in his post match assessment.

"After that goal (the equalizer), some players tried to play their own game and we tried to come back in the second half by putting pressure on them but nothing came out." added coach Bok

"Basically, we tried to go as far as possible, tough game like this is good preparation to see where the team can improve."coach Bok concluded.

"The game was not bad but both sides missed some very good players" commented DPMM coach Vjeran Simunic (above) after the match.

"To me SAFFC is always the best team as they won many titles and it's not easy to beat SAFFC but we did something special (tonight) as we put 150% of effort for this moment and we deserved where we are to be in the final." added Simunic

DPMM's players and fan posed with the League Cup after the match.

League Cup Semi-Final Short Take (edited)

DPMM's fans outside the ground celebrating their team's win (Sorry for the quality as I used my mobile to snap this)

The first thing that came to my mind on the Monday morning was whether DPMM would be able to sustain their run with their hard and tough aggressive that won admiration from most lately.

The answer a definite yes, Woodlands Wellington were clearly outclassed by the in-form Bruneians who slowly revealing their true abilities.

Two well taken goals resulted from some attacking plays bore the testaments that whoever are going to face them will face a very tough fight.

Despite that coach Vjeran Simunic was not pleased with the result.

"Unfortunately, tonight we only won 2-1 and I'm surprised as we had created five, six chances in the game." said coach Simunic in his post match assessment.

"It shown we are improving after every game we played and proved that my players as good as players like Noh Alam Shah.” he added.

(note: Not sure if there were some unpleasant incidents that Woodlands' coach Nenad Bacina briefly interrupted when Simunic was addressing to the press. And angry words were exchanged when Bacina stormed into the media conference.)

“We had lost to a better team because they got hold of their chances” said coach Bacina.

“And I expect them (DPMM) to beat us as they are among the top-three teams and we can't complete with them with the budget they have and the level of competition they played before.

“I'm happy with my team's performance as many people don't expect Woodlands to do well this season.”added the Croatian coach.

THE THOUGHTS/SHORT TAKE ON THE FOLLOWING DAY

The general sentiment is while DPMM may have made some of their critics ate their words with their success in the league cup with their robust style of play but it will also take this same element to plot their downfall faster than anybody thought.

Just take a look at the way they lost their talismantic skipper Sallehuddin Damit and ace marksman Abdelhamid Berguiga in their semi-final win over Woodlands Wellington.

Just to serve as a reminder that the Bruneians lost their first game in the season (against Home United) because the missing of six regulars due to suspensions.

The uniformed derby is always a hotly contested event on and off the field.

Home United stick to their rotational policy that been serving them well by deployed some fresh legs in their duel against the “auld enemy” SAFFC.

While the fatigued Warriors were struggling for large part of the game, they did reasonably well to hold the Protectors at bay.

Again, football being a funny game when you cannot score you have to pay the price for let others to score instead and that was what happened to Home United in the first half when “Doo” (Naruphol Ar-Romsawa) blasted wide after eluded the entire Warriors defence.

So Park Tae Won took the chance and Aleksandar Duric had his in dying seconds sent the Warriors to the final amid a crumbling Home defence on both occasions.

“SAFFC deserved it overall.” said Home United coach Mr PN Sivaji (left in above picture) after the match.

“Although they (SAFFC) are a tired outfit, they have more experience. They closed the game up quite well and we don't have a answer to their defence with eight players behind the ball most of the time as we couldn't get our passes which is our weakness tonight.” he added.


“We are not playing that well and we are not playing that bad either, as we have been missing some key players and we are being a bit lucky.” said SAFFC's coach Richard Bok (right in above picture).

“It would tough but if you're winning, it'll compensate the tiredness ”said coach Bok on his team's chances against the fired-up debutant of the league.

Continue the trend of excitement as DPMM bulldozed Geylang in League Cup

Cup games are always something different as it's a no-hold barred contest between the two team that whoever lose - OUT YOU GO!! simple as that.

The match between Geylang United and Brunei DPMM was my first League Cup match having just returned from my Down Under trip.

This was deemed "NO-GOAL"

Was late for the game as it was last minute decision to be at the ground for this match, so I missed the first goal of the night.

But sheer aggressiveness shown by both teams gave the fans barrowload of goals to cheer about and end-to-end action of this game had also ensured this season's League Cup not being a dull affairs (as I was told).

The was the "freeze" moment before the ball went in

"There are some individual errors that we have to look at it, specific players have to ask themselves why as we cannot carry on like that to the next league (game) and the Singapore Cup but I'm proud the way they played." said Geylang's coach Mike Wong after the game.

Coach Wong revealed that the Eagles will approach their next league encounter against the same opponent differently as "this is a Cup game so when you are two-one down, you still go for a two-two draw but because this is going to be a league game so we approach differently."

DPMM's fans hailed their heroes after the hard fought battle

While his DPMM counterpart Vjeran Simunic would rather to stay focus in their on-going League Cup semi-final clash against Woodlands Wellington next week.

"Woodlands are a very dangerous side as we played Woodlands three times and we lost twice" said the Croatian coach paying tribute to his semi-final opponents.

"I think the game (against Woodlands) would be very tough like tonight." he added.

When asked if his team are at the top of their game now, this is what coach Simunic said,"Yeah, I'm sure because against SAFFC, we dominated the last 20 minutes and also today we played very nice last 20 minutes, so both were good results for my team."

Feel Free to tell us about urself

Gavin's blog on BBC ("PrtSC" from BBC)

The name - Gavin Strachan don't seems to ring a bell to most of us who are more familiar with Rooney, Stevie G, C Ronaldo etc.

Neither do I, after all, Gavin described himself as a "journeyman" footballer plying his trade in the lower tier of the English football for years.

But here's a player who planned well for his career after the game by studying journalism during his spare time and therefore the BBC blog which he maintaining is what he making use of what he learned.

Inside this blog, Gavin shared with us his insight as a lower tier football player far from the glamorous lifestyle of that of those Premiership millionaires.

So one thing came to my mind instantly - how many of our local footballers tried doing this before? None?

I do came across some so-called "star columnist" appeared on the papers occasionally but none of this like what Gavin is doing as these column mainly dealt with match preview, analytical type of dull stuff.

How "Twitter" looked like

While I'm not trying to ask our local footballers to do something like what Gavin is doing but I felt there are other meant of sharing with us, the fans, what and how they going about with their non-footballing lifestyle.

Entering "Twitter" - the microblogging sensation that taken the world by storm, this is definitely an unique concept that user can update their "tweets" either via their profile page and the best thing, of course, through their mobile phone.

Unfortunately and fortunately, the main restriction is the 140-character limit of each "tweet" but that should be enough as that is what "Twitter" is all about - need not have to go into length to tell the world how you feel, just says, "man,tired after the win but worth d effort!!hehehe" (just 50 characters)

How "SgBEAT" looked like

Then again, the drawback about "Twitter" is that you can't upload picture from your profile page without using a "third-party" tool like "TwitPic".

So recently, as you all been noticing that I been utilized this new microblogging site - "SgBEAT" to do my live streaming match update and the beauty of it - you can upload your "beat" (equivalent to "tweets") using not only your mobile, through your profile page but users are allowed to upload picture together with their text!

It'll go on and on if I go further in details, so jump into the bandwagon using these neat tools and "Feel Free 2 tel us abt urself".

(P.S: Opinions expressed are personal views of blogger without any form of influence, interferences or whatsoever from the mentioned service site.)

more "endorsers" of BOCAP...

NOTICE: I would like to state it clearly before-handed that it is never my intention to make use of the gentlemen depicted below as any form of advertisement or whatsoever for the BOCAP. As the caps were given to them as a memento and keepsake out of my own will... Thank You.

"Hope you find this cap (BOCAP) handy" I told Robbie Fowler (above) as handing over the cap to him while he was about to make his way of the football clinic last Saturday.

Which it was very handy indeed when he cheekily use it to cover a kid's jersey's logo of the club sponsored by ailing insurance giants AIG (get what I mean?) which having his photo taken with him :)

Many thanks to Fandi Ahmad for allowing me to snap this picture (above) after a short chit-chat with this boyhood hero of my.

"I like this material and it's light, not like those cotton-type" he said (at least, I found an ally on this as many lambasted the material that make it looked "cheapo")

Mission Continues.....before heading out...

P.S: I think by the time you guys read this entry, I should be out of town already.

Nonetheless, I already scheduled some entries, which are not time-sensitive, to be loaded up while I'm away from home so as to the blog running (a tip I learned from some blogging experts to retain viewership).

The recent NQLD Fury vs Tampines Rovers friendly not only saw the Stags beat the visiting A-League team but also a chance for me to grab a few more signatures on my posters.

(Picture credit: "Cloud" of Kallangroar.com)

Just like any star-struck fan, I had my posters in "standby" mode just in case anyone depicted in these posters walked through the glass doors that linked the main lobby to the playing field of Jalan Besar Stadium.

So we had Lee Man Hon (above) signed on the 1993's poster, after I spotted him he walking through the glass doors.

Midfield Dynamo - Malek Awab was catching the main event along the corridor when I asked, "Excuse me Sir, would you help me to identify this gentleman inside this poster?" before handed over the marker :P