BoLASEPaKO.com - A Blog on Singapore Football

Ripped off by "PrtSc" from my desktop Very often via my "sitemeter" tracker, I always have visitors googled "livestream" of some particular matches and eventually ended up at my blog. Not that long ago.. I came across another online software- USTREAM , that allows "livestreaming" video. The best part of it is the simplicity in setting up the whole thing . Simply register an account, plug-in your video camera and you're really to "camera". Wondering would be a loophole to more loss of revenue if someone simply sneak a video camera in, plug onto his/her laptop, connect to "Wireless@SG", which is available at some venue, so as to allow some fans to catch the game at their comfort zone?

Which is why I would like to highlight a point regarding writing to the feedback/opinion section of any major dailies. A bove: mypaper dated 22nd Jul 2008 A bove: TODAY dated 22nd Jul 2008 As you can see for yourself that both letters were written by the same person "Jason Chiam". However, due to the space constraint or whatsoever reasons, the letter need to be edited before publish them. Which sometimes I don't understand why? I mean those guys, who wrote to the papers, already done their proof-reading and editing before submitting but once in the hands of the editors, who might carelessly re-edit some part of the letter "out-of-context" and tweak the whole story! Anyway, good thing Jason wrote this letter as it prompted the SSC, the landlord of the National Stadium, to reply the query of many (as below).. Thanks a lot, Jason and hope it does answer everyone's question.

Got to know there's this movie about Singapore football "Kallang Roar the Movie" that is gonna hit the town soon. I'm sure it's going to be definitely better than the slapstick - "One Leg Kicking" ( graded 3.6/10 as on 30th June by "imdb" ) Here's the trailer clips as forwarded to me via my " Farewell to Kallang Roar " clip Part One Part Two Must have bring back a lot of Good Ol' Memories eh? (P.S.: and Uncle Choo's scolding too!!)

The leading up to and the days that follow after the game against Uzbekistan saw some of my letters being published on the mainstream papers. Urging the fans to turn up at the National Stadium - "Mypaper" - 2nd June 2008 (Well, 28,000 of you, as seen below this line, turned up.. How many responded to my call??) Days later (6th June 2008), another of my letters (below) was published on "TODAY" (dated 6th May). This time round, I voiced my opinion by saying it wasn't fair to "pin-point" the naturalized players only for the defeat. (Unfortunately, the guys at TODAY tweaked my line a little bit and somehow misnterpreted my views.. Sight! ). On the same day on "MyPaper", one honest chap gave his "wake-up" call to we all die-hard supporters (as depicted above). Feeling a lump in my throat, I wrote in again (above, published on 9th June 2008) and "thank him" for his honest view. Writing to the mainstream press can be a daunti

“The Straits Times” shown some mercy when they lauded the "courage and effort shown", whereas its sister paper, the free tabloid “Mypaper” screamed "Disgraceful, Inept, Shameful!", while the rivalling “TODAY” depicted a player looked like Aleksandar Duric or Fahrudin Mustafic holding his head in despair with the tag "LIONS' SHAME". Those were the reactions from the mainstream media following the national team's biggest home defeat in their competitive history. While I don't blame the media for splashing that kind of eye-catching headlines across the front-pages since they were telling what we saw with our own eyes. Although, all these happened at the wrong timing. Wrong timing in a sense, these happened when the chips are looking up for the national team, who are slowly trying to regain the faith of the notorious sceptical football followers of this country. Yes, we were being taught a very good lesson of the game and the Uzbeks truly deserved

It is a sad day for football or the whole local sporting fraternity, if you do, as well, consider the ugly spat between shuttler Ron Susilo and his former fianceè Lee Jiawei. First, many fans have to resign to the reality that they will have to fork out more to enjoy top-notch football on television (personally, I don't consider terrestrial channels free either since there's the annual TV licence fee that tagged with your property tax, remember?) Blame for the small consumer size that we have that we are being charged at a rate we consider a "rip-off". In the spirit of the "free market", the MDA (the relevant authority) stand firm on its "non-intervention" policy, despite a huge public outcry. Yet, the sad thing is that they are still plenty of guys willing to pay that ridiculous subscription, just to meet their "temptation" (see the "cut-out"picture above). I'm sorry but I would say these lots are PATHETIC and I hope they a

It's not usual for me to pick up a copy of the flagship broadsheet of the SPH. And it's not usual for the backpages to spotlight on local football as well. One of the stories being featured - the rejection of national striker Indra Sahdan by MLS outfit, Real Salt Lake. With 3/4 of the page focused on the dearth of the COE schemes among the S.League clubs. On Indra's rejection Strike the iron while it's hot, if the ace striker still has that desire to play in some top-notch league. One possible (and the only feasible) destination - Australia. Why not? After all, football ties between the two has always closely linked and quite a handful of former S.League players are plying their trade over there (in the States Leagues and even the top-tier A-League). The dearth of the COE schemes Some might not find it pleasant when I said this but in regards of the dearth, I would said, "SCRAP IT!" Since some clubs find it, either too costly or logistically hard to maintain t

If you were at Queenstown stadium days ago, you bound to hear the mentioned chants by the "home" fans. After all, it was the home debut of Dalian Shide Siwu FC (one of the many variations of this team) - the latest addition to the S.League. Initially, these fans (a small pocket of Chinese expatriates) were chanting "Come On, Dalian!" (大连队,加油!) before they switched to "Come On, Shide!" (实得队,加油!), although the funny part occurred when they also chant "Come on, LIAONING!"(辽宁队,加油!) No fault to that, since Dalian is a seaport located in the Liaoning province, thus no argument to that I thought (See the map above.. Thanks Paul, for reminding me that). PICTURES at QUEENSTOWN STADIUM The first surprise was to read the another variation of the name of the Dalian Shide Football Club - "Dalian Shide Talent Development Football Club' (Wow.. that's long and formal eh..) Another surprise was to see the media booth being shifted upwards to the top

The "PrtSc" shoot of the site... Got a request for info days ago, just before the kick-off of the season. A Brazilian journalist was keen to do a write-up for the League and requested for some information. So I did and not long ago he emailed the link of the story (as mentioned below - the URL) http://www.trivela.com/Futebol.aspx?secao=7&id=18670 It's in Portuguese though (might need to translate with the in-built software inside the Firefox browser)

picture link Came across the website while someone was searching for "Steven Tan" on Google. "Jaguars Den" was probably one of the first few S.League-related website making its debut in late 1990s. Sad to note that unavoidable financial crunch had forced this well-supported club out of business years back, but at least fans of the Jags can still relive that memories by log on to this not-longer-update site at http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Loge/8181/

One visitor made the abovementioned comment So, for the benefit for all, I decided to draw out the whole process of it... Hmm... perhaps should I ?? Ok lah, "Hamtam" and see how lah.. "Alrite, we will run your letter, thanks" A "run-through" and see how it is... " http://www.uploading.com/files/S39KR206/mysay-my-version.pdf.html " - Raw unedited version of my " http://www.uploading.com/files/A3RIFHZJ/my13-018-0-myp.pdf.html " -"mypaper" version (after editing) So based on the TWO versions, able to tell if "mypaper" had done a good job in interpret my views or not??

You need not go into length on what you are going to explain about the no-show of the Lions-Saudi match, because we read your mind! Not surprise of you saying like this "we don't have the RIGHT to telecast" Save the crap… ever since the demise of “Sportcity” (prior that the Channel 12, which was the de-facto sport channel), terrestrial broadcasters in Singapore seems to be “ill-treated” those sports lovers, whom aren’t cable channel subscriber. As we all aware that MOST of the major sporting events are shown on cable channels. Fair enough as the higher bidder won the telecast right to show on their network, so which why I would like to ask why is the terrestrial broadcaster been losing out every time when bidding for right to telecast any major sporting event? We already lost the “World Cup” for years and even the “Asean Football Championship” to the cable operators, so much so when the national team has made it so far to this stage in the World Cup qualifiers, yet fans

I am one of those who clamour for more media coverage on local football. But having seen the failure of our "another national team" to qualify for a major tournament next summer, whereas our very own Lions are just two hurdles away from the greatest show on earth, I'm not sure if my view has tweaked a little bit. As compared to our former colonial masters, they are the media's darlings with every tipsy-bitsy well-detailed for all news-hunger fans, while the Lions are hardly worth mentioning on the back pages of some dailies (unless there's a major tournament). Perhaps, that's the crux of it? With the spotlights constantly hogging towards their run-up against Croatia, England (yes, aren't they being "another" national team of Singapore?) failed to make the cut to Euro2008. And our very own Lions quietly made it to the top 20 of the Asian World Cup qualifier, with scarce media attention. These contrasting sights remind me of 14 years ago (1993) whe

Hmmm... yes, this is the match that's gonna decided who is going to be crowned as the league champions BUT to term it as a season finale (as listed on the TV listing of "The Straits Times") sounded not so appropriate. As the Singapore Cup Final is scheduled next Sunday, thus completed the whole season. wouldn't it be better to sound THAT as the "season finale"? Anyway, different people different interpretation ...

I would like to recommend a book, yes! And it's a "textbook" to be precise. Not sure how you guys thought about it. Nay... not those published by the Ministry of Education. But the one as illustrated above. In short, it traced the conceiving to the launch and the wanning of hype of the J-League, plus insights in areas such as administration, players recruiting/developing, generate publicity, creating awareness, fans participating and etc. Not only that, it also explained why the game of football is seen as a tool to break away from the core traditional Japanese values that have been dominating all aspects of their life. This should served as a useful reference to all involved in Singapore soccer, who might still remained clueless, how to run the game. Yes! You may argue that the background and setting are different from ours but bear that in mind - Football was completely an "alien" game prior the introduction of the J-League. Isn't it sad that for us, who

Not that long ago, I was privileged to be at the seminar organized by the FAS Referees Committee. The aim of the get-together session with the referees, coaches, media, and officials was aimed to foster better understanding between various parties pertaining to issues related to the laws of the game. It was a wonderful session as attendees benefited from this short but informative session, which helped in understanding the challenges faced by the match officials in today's game. Some pictures snapped during the seminar FAS Referees Committee Chairman Mr Jeffrey Beh kicked start the session with a short opening speech. The Speakers of the seminar - Mr Shamsul Maidin and Mr John Chia John was the first speaker with everybody's "favourite" law - OFFSIDE Shamsul covered the Laws of Foul and Misconduct, he quoted a lot of incidents from his vast match officiating experience to highlight the topic he covered.

In my private email to a group of friends not long ago, regarding the setting up of the trial Singapore football forum at the mass-appealing HWZ . I told them we cannot depend entirely on the mainstream media to publicize the S.League. It is certainly hard to face the fact that mainstream media are not doing much to raise the awareness of the local game, as much we would like them to like in the old days. A picture (below) here should more or less tell the story. A small obscured space on the papers Given such a small slot on the back pages and featured under the appropriately named as "Soccer Shorts", it hardly raised the eyebrows of any readers. Although, we can gather some S.League info from the likes of "TODAY" , "Shin Ming Daily News" 's Tuesday edition (one of the two SPH Chinese evening papers) and etc., still, I felt a large part of the folks out there are still ignorant of the league because of the lack of participation from the rest. Prepare

This picture really pissed me off, as "mypaper" joined the fun in covering EPL news ..and in fact I'm pretty sick of it!! What is so great about EPL? That almost all sports media in Singapore can't survive without it? Yet again, Liverpool's Community Shield win appeared on the frontpage of the "Grand Old Lady" (The Straits TIme) - What's the BIG DEAL man? Hey.. every idiots seems eagerly anticipate to see themselves "suck back to the "made-believe" fairytale of the EPL! While no one seems to pay attention to the Lions' crucial fixture against China days tomorrow! It's certainly is a JOKE!! Just days ago, aren't you guys sang the national anthem and pledged yourself as "ONE UNITED PEOPLE"? Yet there's not concern about the Lions' Asian Cup qualifier? SHAME ON YOU LOT.. FAKE IDIOTS!!!