BoLASEPaKO.com - A Blog on Singapore Football

We may not see the return of the International Champions Cup Singapore (ICCSG) tournament due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic but it is worthwhile to look back on some happenings that took place in the past when foreign teams came to our shores to play a few friendly matches. The arrival of those marquee names in the world football to this dot of the globe in recent years has always been a crowd-puller that not only drawn local fans from their couches from Jurong to Tampines and Woodlands to Bedok by making their way down to Kallang, the ICCSG, as it is commonly known as, has also been a lure for the regional supporters of those European clubs as well like how the Indonesian fans of Inter made their presence felt in their match against Chelsea in the 2017 edition. Advertisement for Anchor Soccer Festival' 74 ( NLB archive ) The trend of such visits by these foreign sides did not start during the 1970s when there were tournaments like the Anchor Soccer Festival in 1974 (so

Cable telegram was costly in the past that only keywords were used to relay the message and hoping the recipients would understand the content. Nonetheless, misunderstandings would occur at times if the recipients failed to decipher the intention of the sender like this plan, as shown in the below clipping from The Straits Times (ST) , to send two Singaporean players to Leeds United in 1950. The news that caused a great sensation among local fans ( NLB archive )   The receiver of that cable message was the legendary "Uncle" Choo Seng Quee from AJR Hooper from Leeds on the possibility of having Leong Hoi Meng and Foo Hee Jong attend a trial at Leeds United. Hooper served in the British Army during the post-war years and found himself involved in the local football scene as a referee on top of his military commitments. It was during that period he discovered a number of local players like Chinese Athletic Association's Leong and Foo who showed the potential to p

Preface I was thinking if was it possible to come up with two separate blog posts or should I put everything together to consolidate into one given the scarcity of the materials? Even though they shared some connections along the way for having an intertwined history, yet had to go separate ways after some evolution along the way. The old logo of MCFA (left) and the logo of SCFA (right) After much deliberations, I decided to put everything I gathered on Singapore Chinese Football Association (later known as Singapore Chinese Football Club) and Malaya (later Malaysia) Chinese Football Association into one single post. Nonetheless, should you have any material or details about the aforementioned subjects, please feel free to email me in order to enrich this blog post, thanks. The Beginning According to an article of the souvenir publication produced by Singapore Chinese Football Association (SCFA) for their social and dance held on 15 December 1956, this umbrella body of Chin

When I declared my season was done after the 2019 Singapore Cup final, I realized I amassed a stack of accreditation passes that were essential in order to work behind the scene from the days it was known as the S.League till two years ago when it was rebranded as Singapore Premier League (SPL). My involvement started halfway in 1998 (the third season) when I answered a call and turned up at a meeting in the S.League office at old National Stadium to be part of the crew assembled to help the official league website. Evolution of the passes  The first pass I received was a laminated pass with the necessary details besides the photo which I snapped at one of those instant photo booths, on the bottom of the pass listed the league sponsors of that season like Tiger Beer, Pepsi, NTUC Income, and Singapore Pools. "BUSINESS CARD" PASS FIT IN NICELY The following year saw the pass shrunk into a business card-size made of plastic material by Cardwon from Taiwan and honestly

This year's review will be on the blog itself. If we are going to talk about the state of the local game for the past twelve months, it would be another session of flogging the dead horse. EVOLUTION - NECESSARY PROCESS Evolution is a necessary process for most of us and this platform is no different in order to stay relevant. Although I would say I took a route that evolved this platform into something not conventional and some may not even find it relevant at all. Since last year, this platform decided to place more focus on something it had never done before when the compilation of historical accounts of local football is being prioritized. Sunday Nation headlines on 13th March 1977 ( NLB archive ) The process of combing through the archives of the online newspaper has been a rewarding experience in that it is an eye-opener to realize how active the scene was in the long-gone era. Media coverage by the press was abundant with newspapers like The Straits Times, Malay

The possibility of the revival of the once-popular Singapore Business Houses Football League (SBHFL) or starting something similar was raised during last year's Football Association of Singapore (FAS) Congress when president Lim Kia Tong was quoted in The Straits Times (ST) report that covered the event. Said Mr Lim: "The plan is to see participation from both businesses and professional associations. We would like to have the corporate sector involved in football again." The Commercial Cup ( NLB archive ) Suggestions from the fraternity to revive SBHFL were nothing new and it was one of the topics brought up in the discussion during the campaigning of the 2017 FAS elections. "It was a good league (SBHFL) where you could get the companies to support football." said Lian Kim Fatt, the honorary secretary of the Singapore Government Services Football League (SGSFL). "If you don't give the companies mileage, how can you expect them

I first came to know the existence of the demolished Anson Road Stadium after I read a line from the veteran journalist Godfrey Robert's book "The Malaysia Cup" published back in 1990. USED TO THINK JBS WAS THE OLDEST Prior to that, it was always in my opinion that Jalan Besar Stadium was the oldest football stadium in Singapore (even though the old arena used to function as a rugby and hockey venue as well) due to its aged facade which I noticed when I first visited the ground back in the early 1990s before the redevelopment program begun in December 1999. Big turnouts like this were common at Anson Road Stadium (credit: NLB archive ) Field diagram for listeners tuned in for radio commentary in the old days (credit: NLB archive ).   Recently, when I chanced upon an online article that provides a scribe on the arena, it piqued my interest to find out where exactly was this stadium located in the Tanjong Pagar area. EXHIBITION VENUE TURNED INTO STADIUM Accordin

Maybe we will not say it now but who knows twenty years down the road, we would proudly declare: "The era under Raddy Avramovic was the greatest ever in Singapore football!", I am sure there are some people who read the words earlier would recommend me to see a psychiatrist now. How on earth would that be possible when that period while the Serbian was the coach of the Singapore national team was considered by many as a watershed in the local football despite successfully guided the Lions to three Asean titles in 2004, 2007, 2012 and accoladed himself as the "Coach of the Year" by Asean Football Federation back in 2013. 20 years later we would thank Raddy for his work done for us  Ironically, it was because of those honours gathered during that period that when people start to reminisce about the "glorious" past and those records would speak for themselves and some would say "yes, those were the days..." and start to talk about those nosta