BoLASEPaKO.com - A Blog on Singapore Football

What can I say about this when I first saw this in the morning? To my surprise, even one of my maternal aunts can recalled some of the names of these legends when she revealed that during her courtship days with my uncle - going to catch the team in action was a common thing in their "pak-tor" days! An appreciation that came rather late or what? Why do we need someone who is critically ill, so suddenly, to make all of us remember the joy and happiness they had brought to us more than 30 years ago ?? The details of those players who achieved "god-like" status in those days were detailed in this special report by The Sunday Times (above), when there's a sudden surge of interest on them following that unfortunate incident last week at Jalan Besar Stadium. Joining the rest of those who are concern of his well-being, let's once again wish Mr Dollah a speedy recovery. UPDATE ON MR DOLLAH KASSIM'S CONDITION According to a source close to Mr Dollah Kassim, it r

The general mindset of most local clubs officials and players is to keep "things within four walls" and it's not very often we see war-of-words trading across feuding parties to ensure the mood of solidarity in the local football fraternity (because of the "Code of Conduct" I guess). Personally, nothing wrong with that as nobody would want to see a WWE-styled reality show since the main product is the game itself. (Picture) How often you wonder who were players on the field? However, the lack of hype in the local scene also not in favour to itself as fans may find it a bit "routine-like" to turn out at games. So that was why I suggested earlier to get players to tell us more about themselves , nothing to extend to do some damages to one's reputation, but some snippets behind the scenes should start some interesting topics to discuss. Unfortunately, no one has taking up the idea (maybe they are not aware of it?) or would they rather stay out of lime

Sad for the fact that a negative story as such will hit the front pages and common folks would then take notice of the local game for the wrong reasons. Days after black Sunday, Leonard Thomas, the sports editor of TODAY urged the Football of Association of Singapore (FAS) to make a bold initiative by implementing the use of video at the matches to address this nagging issue (pictured above). However, one must bear in mind that using such technology may not necessarily solve the issue overnight. Furthermore, several factors need to be taken care of should the league authority decide to push ahead. LOGISTIC ISSUES Soon expensive equipment have to be installed and more manpower will have to be deployed on match days if the league authority decides to give the go-ahead. Are we ready for this in the unfavourable financial climate when prudence is the key? ADDITIONAL TIME TO BE INCURRED The game has to be halted should the referee decide to consult the video referee. Time must be added on t

"I didn't make him a star, the media did!" refuted a coach recently when asked about the less-than-desirable performance by his "star" player after another defeat to his team. How true that statement was as a matter of fact it's only when a player who performed consistently well enough and therefore being mentioned in the media.   (Picture) ex-Sengkang coach Jorg Steinnebrunner with the media after their season opener As this player continued to maintain his good form and help his team to gain victory after victory, it's inevitable that the public would want to know more about him and his life outside football. So this is perhaps how the love-hate relationship between footballers and media developed. Use it wisely not only it helps to lift up the profile and image of that particular player but having it works against you, the press pack will be the last person one would want to see. One classical example would be former national left-winger Lee Ma

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,

It's nice to see "H-TWO-O" roped in the likes of Noh Alam Shah, Lionel Lewis, Ridhuan Muhamud, Hariss Harun etc. to promote this brand of istonic drink (as depicted in those promotional posters below spotted at City Hall MRT station). Ridhuan Mahamud showing his skill Noh Alam Shah (foreground), Lionel Lewis (in biking gear and cycling) and Hariss Harun At least, we get a chance to see local footballers gaining some much-needed publicity other than during those "prominent" matches (i.e: "AFF Championship"). And which is why I'm now linking that issue to something I want to highlight below. The above article appeared weeks ago on "TODAY" and it tells us a story of the Quah family - widely considered as the "first family" of local football. It was a well-written article that gave us an insight of the footballing brothers of the Quah family (Kim Beng, Kim Choon, Kim Siah, Kim Swee, Kim Lye and Kim Song), who were household names in

My pal Antony Sutton might not fancy another shot to climb up to this scaffold structure..hehe I always want to take a closer look at those equipments used in every "Friday Night Football" and when the game was shifted to Bedok Stadium for the Cup fixture between Geylang United and SAFFC , I decided it's time to take some shots on them. The commentary booth ... with two secondary camera stands positioned beside the main one This is the camera for some close-up, goalmouth actions Interview with both coaches before the game Is this vehicle called the SNG?

Remember Mr Renato Andreão, the Brazilian journalist who helped me to interview Egmar Goncalves weeks ago? This time round, Renato is back again with two S.League-related articles he filed not long ago. The first article (screen-shot above) is a preview of the on-going season. (Click here to view the article and unless you understand Portuguese, do use " Google Translate " to view in English) This is the second year in running that Renato wrote about his preview on our local league (with some inputs from yours truly :P - thanks for mentioning me, Renato) . The interesting part of the article is it also gave the insights on the locations where the clubs based, eg : " Location: Choa Chu Kang, died here the last tiger in Singapore in the 1930s." (Nice one, my friend) While the second article featured Gombak United's Nigerian star Gabriel Obatola. (Click here to view the article and unless you understand Portuguese, do use " Google Translate " to view

The NEW Paper seek some opinions from overseas fans about their view on the national team's recent defeat to the Iranians... Not bad eh.. as our football did attract some attentions from these overseas football lovers BUT hey, take a look .. it's not your usual "Jones" or "Taylors'. They must be from across the Causeway...yet we must be appreciative for their opinions...Thank you guys :)

This is only picture I have of Egmar, as Renato wasn't able to get a recent one from Egmar. Ever wonder what's been going on with former Home United and national striker Egmar Goncalves, after he left Singapore in January 2007? With the help of Mr Renato Andreão , a journalist with " trivela.com " - a Brazilian soccer news portal, I managed to track down the former ace striker of the Protectors. Below is a list of Q & A, which with the help of Renato, here's what Egmar has to share with us how is he doing now since he left Singapore. Q & A with Egmar... It's been quite a while we last hear from you, after you returned to Brazil. So are you still playing actively? As what I heard you been playing for some amateur teams since then. “After I returned from Singapore in 2007, I played for a club called Desportiva and follow by Rio Branco , a year later, but I decided to hang up my boots because I found that infrastructure and administrative-wise the standa

I came across this well-written article by chance. It was written by a lady named Aishah Hamza and starkly titled, " Why Singaporeans Don’t Watch S.League ". As the name implied, she gave a good account from her own perspective why she felt as what her article suggested. Some excerpts from her article: "But S.League is like local music. Singaporeans just don’t like it enough. That’s just the way it is…you can attribute it to our cultural mindset that local is never better than foreign stuff…but that’s just the way we tick. Motley Crue in concert? Wooh! We pay big bucks to be there. But Gry Spy Experiment (some local brand, I believe) ? Nah" "the S.League’s destined to remain unpopular because Singaporeans have no emotional attachment to it. " "So what can FAS do? Honestly, they can’t do anything much. We will always have more allegiance for clubs halfway across the world than Sengkang Punggol F.C or Balestier Khalsa." Indeed, sometimes truth real

This morning, got a text message from a colleague said my letter to TODAY was being published on the final day of 2008. As published on "Voices" (TODAY's feedback page) on 31st Dec 2008 For the benefit of all readers, supporters, visitors etc., I felt I have the obligation to reveal what's the actual content of my letter (attached below) to TODAY, sent on 25th Dec 2008. "PrtScr" of the letter sent Sometimes, I don't blame the editors, due to space and time constraints, for shrinking my letter but I would be glad if they just spend a few more seconds going thru' the content of the letter before the editing. As it happened before in one of my previous letters that one word being omitted by them had eventually MISINTERPRETED the whole meaning of it. Happy New Year, anyway...

The top of the picture is copy of yesterday's "Mypaper" and the mid portion to bottom (with the masthead - MY SAY) of it being the one I picked up just now. At least, there's some sort of balance here as two different schools of thoughts were given adequate coverage here on this free handout. The previous day's edition highlighted the frustration and criticism from fans, who posted on net forums, whereas on the feedback pages today, some loyal supporters jumped into the Lions' defence and blasted those comments made by those "fair-weather" fans (as one writer labelled them as) . A friend of me has this to say, "simply put an article with net forum's quotes as its headline, is unacceptable." "if a mainstream paper can get quotes out of the net, then we no need reporters" Which is why they need a blogger eh, for this instance? hahahaha

A screen-shot of the Peres's interview While everyone was gluing on the AFF Suzuki Cup, a Brazilian acquaintance sent me weblink of the interview he conducted with Home United's midfield maestro Peres de Oliveira, who currently holidaying at home in Brazil. In this interview, Peres shared with Renato Andreão, who conducted the interview, his thoughts on various issues like the recent visit to Singapore by the Brazilian Olympic squad, the two coaches that he felt indebted to in his footballing career and what he likes about Singapore. The interview was conducted in Portuguese, you might required "Google Translator" (though flawed, at times) to translate the text into English. The URL is http://www.trivela.com/Conteudo.aspx?secao=44&id=20044

The recent controversy during our match against Burma in the AFF Suzuki Cup prompted me to blog something on it for an independent soccer blog - " Soccer City FC ". Extracted from the article as below: "As what a commentator joked on the previous night's live telecast of the match between Singapore and Myanmar in the Suzuki Cup Group A fixture, "Singapore seems to be always in this "walk-out" controversy" when the Myanmarese staged a "walk-out" after Singapore scored their third goal in a bizarre fashion. Vietnamese referee Phung Dinh Dung was the man of that moment when he allowed Singapore to restart the game with a free-kick quickly taken that caught the Myanmar players unaware (whom they thought the referee would only restart the game after the injured Singapore player had given treatment to his injury) and allowed Nigerian-born striker Agu Casmir to score his second of the night, Tempers flared and saw Myanmarese 'keeper Aung A

I certainly pray hard the guys at Mediacorp will change their mind by for once get rid of Gurmit Singh (above), in order to allow us to catch the Singapore-Indonesia match on Channel 5. Football fans are puzzled what the terrestrial broadcaster can allowed "live" slots when we played against the Khmers and the Burmese but not against the Indonesia?? Click for better view... ... and subject us to some slapstick - the "F" graded "Just For Laugh"! (sorry but I can't laugh at all when you jokers denied my viewing pleasure). I just pray hard the livestream will be ok on the match day...

Pictures taken at the my flat's lift lobby . I'm sure somebody already thought of that... See these two snapshots took at my flat's lift lobby? Well, the main thing is not the lift but the two notice boards placed on the pillars of the lobby. One of which is maintained by the town council and the other is under the care of the Residents' Committee (RC). As mentioned before, clubs should align themselves with the RCs and other community-based organization . So the question is: Has the clubs thought of having newsletter and other similar publications pasted on notice boards like those? For a start, we need not have something that's glossy and colour intensive if the money is tight, as I read before a simple newsletter can started off with a piece of photocopy of a mastercopy and duplicate as according to the number required (so as to save the trees and effectively managed the cost). A simple guide/format of such newsletter. The whole is, again, to spread the word arou

The movie tickets As a promise to Mr Dollah Kassim and eagerly been waiting for the release of the movie. Finally, I headed to see the movie - "Kallang Roar" just now after work. Had our quick dinner at the KFC, right outside the cinema At first, we thought of having it seen at Lido after there's no suitable time slot at Shaw's Balestier cinema, but in the end we settled at where it was all about - Kallang (because of the ample of parking lots for my colleague who is driving.) Now, as mentioned I was never meant to be a movie critic and all I can say is this movie is a sincere production. For the younger generation, be it the fans, players and whosoever, this movie shall see as a tool of inspiring and learn to appreciate the game of football. Back in the good ol' days, life as an amateur footballer was a tough one as depicted by the character "Samad" who lost his job because of his centralized training with the team then (once read that another player A

RIP "Shoot" (1969-2008) I wasn't aware until I "googled" and "WIKIed" around to know the demise of "SHOOT" magazine. Quoted from the "wiki" page of SHOOT : "Shoot's circulation fell from 120,000 copies per week in 1996 to 33,455 in Autumn 2007. [5] . It had changed to a monthly publication in 2000 as it faced massive competition from its long-term rival Match and a series of new titles including FourFourTwo , When Saturday Comes and other failed competitors such as 90 Minutes and Total Football. Its circulation in 2007 rose 7% year-on-year and it relaunced as a weekly magazine in late February 2008. [6] However, publishers IPC closed the magazine at the end of June 2008. [7] " I recalled in my younger days (when I was still a Liverpool fanatic), those before the days of the internet with papers and BBC World Service being the instant source for any latest news for English footbal news, "SHOOT" magazine wa

Bought this copy yesterday...