18th February

That's the date for the kick-off of 2008 S.League season.

Barely (or less than) three months after the concluding of season 2007 (perhaps the shortest recess to date), this season will kicks off with plenty concerns and constraints.

Concern for the fact that the national team will brace themselves against the top Asian teams in the World Cup qualifiers, which will eventually see a large of national players unable to turn out for their employing clubs when the season commences.

As such the top-three (the uniformed duo - SAFFC, Home United and Tampines Rovers) will have to do without their stars players (and fear of getting injured, of course) and rely heavily on their depth.

This is not a bad thing, since it will be a good chance for the fringe players to prove themselves in crunch time like this.

On the other hand, constraint in a sense that with living expenses skyrocketing, another problem will be - Would the fans (or rather the punters) bother to turn at the grounds?

Every penny counts in time like this as everybody try to scale back their expenditure.

Whilst, I am not asking the clubs and league authority to hike or lower the admission but KIV any thoughts on that.

The whole idea is at $5 per adult (except for Albirex at 6 bucks, as I was told) and $1 for school children, not to forget the occasionally "FOC" admission to "Friday Night Football" at JBS, we should tell the folks that the game of football is worth of amount they're gonna fork out.

Take example a movie.

What makes some of us watch the movie? Because it's the latest blockbuster with star-studded cast. Other than that, it's probably the review and the symposium that lured the audience to the cinemas.

While we may not have those mega stars paraded on our neighbourhood turfs, but what we can offer is the action-packed, high drama and unpredictable outcome football matches can offer.

This is why the crucial task here is to convince the folks, that watching football at stadiums near your home can be a cheaper alternative as compared to going to cinemas.

It come at a time where fans in European football leagues finding more and more costly to go to games, thus that "sense of alienating" is a pretty common sight in Europe, which is why I felt we should NOT make any adjustment to the current admission charges - PLAYING GOOD, ATTRACTIVE FOOTBALL TO BRING THE FANS (BACK) TO THE GROUNDS!!

Unless, you are one of those who can't understand the whole idea of 22 men chasing around leather spherical object on a patch of grass.

Last but not least though, is that the league is going miss two of its crowd-pullers: Home United's Indra Sahdan Daud and former Tampines Rovers striker Noh Alam Shah.

For dinstinctive reasons, Indra is heading to the States for a try-out with Real Salt Lake of the MLS (see the picture snapped from "Berita Harian", below)

While, for "Ah Long" (pictured below, with the blogger) is still appealing for the one-year ban on him to be lifted.

What a stark contrast of fate of these two of the best strikers we have in the recent years, Sight..

Let's the season begins...