Homecoming

My aunt used to call him Chuan Sin Koo. Not that he is a Chinese but because of his dexterity with a football. She wasn't a football supporter but somehow, liked to watch games that featured this Chuan Sin Koo fella who could twist his body left and right to bemuse other footballers on the field and score goals with unusual ease. Well, my aunt is no longer around but Chuan Sin Koo is back with his original team. I'm sure she would be very excited.

It has been a very significant few hours even in Penang. At 11.20pm last night, I alerted a friend in Kuala Lumpur that an imminent announcement was about to be made at Old Trafford. Then I fell asleep. Woke up this morning to discover that while I was asleep, Manchester United had been busy. A deal had been agreed with Juventus to bring the now 36-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo back to the stadium where he gained his superstar reputation. 

I was sufficiently moved to wake my wife up and tell her the exciting news that my aunt's Chuan Sin Koo was back. I've never done that before and I doubt that I would have an excuse to do it again. So let me make the best of this opportunity to say Welcome Home, Cristiano Ronaldo, Welcome Home, CR7. 

All boars and coach rescued

The news that all 12 boys and their coach have been rescued will come as a huge relief to millions in Thailand and around the world who have followed every step of this captivating story.

The boys - aged between 11 and 16 - went into the cave with their 25-year-old football coach on 23 June, after a training session.

They were then trapped by floodwaters after heavy rains, and retreated further into the cave to find safety.

News that they had gone missing sparked a massive search operation involving more than 1,000 people, with several expert cave divers from all around the world flying in to help out.

On 2 July, nine days later, British divers found the hungry and fatigued group huddled on a ledge in a cavern, sparking joyous scenes across Thailand.

Jubilation turned to grave concern after the military warned that the boys could have to wait for up to four months for floodwaters to recede before they could be rescued.

Divers brought food and other supplies, and a Navy doctor was sent in to care for the group.

But on Sunday, Thai authorities decided they had to act, as fears mounted that the flooding would worsen under heavy rains.

And so a remarkable operation began to rescue the team. Four boys were brought out on Sunday, four on Monday, and the remaining four and their coach today.

Faiz Subri's wonder goal

When the name of Roberto Carlos is mentioned, the one thing that comes to mind is his notorious free kick in the Brazil versus France game at the Le Tournoi 1997. It was notorious because the once-in-a-lifetime banana strike curled into goal in a seemingly impossible way. It was a uniquely wonderful moment in football history, except that it is no longer unique. Mohd Faiz Subri, an attacking mid-fielder of the Penang football team, has just scored a wonderful screamer of a free-kick against Pahang in the second round of the Malaysia Super League that may actually out-bend Carlos' banana. I hear his goal is now in contention for FIFA's Puskas Award for 2016 but then, he will have to wait until next January to know the results. In the meanwhile, congratulations to Faiz Subri.

What's happening?

Incident at the AJ Bell Stadium in Salford, England, where a charity match was held on 7 Aug 2014 to raise funds for the local football team. The Salford City Football Club is owned by Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and the two Neville brothers, Gary and Phil, who are aiming to take the team from the Northern Premier League Division One North to the Northern Premier Division. I can only hope that the Class of '92 can inspire their team northwards instead of southwards. :-)

Does it matter?

Bloody hell, of course, it matters. It matters every time we play them, anywhere in the world. Wot a question to ask!

52 minutes of the FIFA World Cup 2014

When the FIFA World Cup 2014 started in Brazil about a month back, I had promised myself that I wouldn't be forced to watch any of the games if I don't want to. 

At my age, it is very important that I give priority to getting enough sleep or else I wouldn't be able to function properly come the next day.

Once when I went to the Kampong Baharu market for my daily morning marketing, one of the stall keepers asked whether I had watched any of the football. He looked terrible, and he confessed that he had been up in the wee hours watching the games almost every day. I told him, no, I haven't been watching at all. Why, he asked incredulously, the World Cup comes only every four years and why wasn't I watching? My answer, as expected, was simple: sleep. I need my sleep. I need my glorious sleep. I need my, ahem, beauty sleep.

Thus, the preliminary stages came and went without me watching a single game. Really! Seriously! All I did in the mornings was to read about the scoreline from the online newspapers, and there were plenty enough to read. Similarly, the first and second rounds of the knock-out stages came and gone without me watching a single live game either.

Except for the Holland-Costa Rica quarter-final match last Sunday. I came downstairs at six o'clock and switched on the telly. It was the end of the second half. The game clock showed 89 minutes had been played and it was a deadlock on the field. No side had managed to score. Then four minutes was added to the game. I watched through till the whistle went. Scoreless, still. I switched off the television and went to change. Time for my wife and I to go out to the island for the Penang heritage talk on Folk Beliefs. Until Sunday, that was the only five minutes of the World Cup that I had watched live or otherwise.

This morning, I awoke at about 4.50a.m. Unable to sleep. Normally, I would just laze around in bed, listening to the sounds from outside the window. The rustling of the leaves, the chirping of insects, the singing of birds. Only difference this morning was that I decided to creep downstairs. Turned on the television. The commentators were talking about the first half of the Brazil-Germany match. I didn't catch much of what they said. Coming in at the tail-end of their commentary, it was mighty incomprehensible.

Then the television showed close-ups of the Brazil supporters in the stands. Sombre faces all round. No smiles, no joy. Just sad, gloomy, glum faces. With tears. Ooh, I thought to myself. Something must be up. Brazil trailing Germany, no doubt about it. But the telly and the commentators gave no hint away. Really frustrating, trying to find the reason and unable to find it. The long advertisements added to my impatience.

Then the second half started. Finally, I learnt the reason why. Germany had an impossible-to-fathom lead of 5-0 going into the second half of the game. Now I understood why the Brazil fans were so glum and gloomy. It would take a miracle for Brazil to win. I haven't heard of any team overcoming a five-goal difference to come and draw a football game.

So I sat down to watch the second half. Hopefully it would be interesting. But you know, there was also a danger that the second half would turn into a listless contest if one side simply stalled to keep their lead and frustrated all attempts by the other side. For much of the time, this happened. Germany absorbed everything that Brazil threw at them. Then on two breaks, Germany raced up field and scored two more goals. Seven for the Germans before Brazil managed to score a consolation goal in the dying minutes of the game. And that was that, the A Seleção being shafted by the Die Mannschaft. Humiliation, indeed, for the Brazil team and the Brazil fans, in front of a world-wide television audience and more so, in front of their home crowd. But that's football. It's round, and anything can happen on the field.

By the way, with the second half watched with time added at the end, my total viewing time to date for the FIFA World Cup now stands at 52 minutes. Would I watch tomorrow morning's game between Holland and Argentina? Well, only sleep will tell.

In Giggs, we should trust

Nowadays, very little disrupts my sleeping routine. In the past five years or so, my routine is to retire for bed at 12.30 a.m. at the latest unless there is something urgent concerning health or family matters to attend to. Not even football can persuade me to stay up and watch 22 men play with a ball in a field. I really do need my beauty sleep. It's such a precious commodity.

And so it was too last night. I slept at 12.30 a.m. but then at four o'clock in the morning, I was suddenly wide awake. No matter how I tossed and turned, sleep could not come back to me. In resignation, I knew that at the back of my mind, there must have been a tinge of regret in not staying up to watch the football game between Manchester United and Norwich City. It was the first game with Ryan Giggs in charge as the interim manager and I chose to sleep. And thus, missed it.

I reached out for the iPad and went to the sports section of The Guardian and the Manchester Evening News. Read the headlines: a 4-0 win against Norwich. Eagerly poured over all the news reports and looked over the pictures. The stadium erupting in adulation for a true son of Manchester United. Having satisfied myself with that, I tried to go back to sleep. But it was not until past six o'clock that I managed to nod off until about eight in the morning.

Moyes is history

I just got wind of the news that David Moyes has been sacked by Manchester United Football Club. And, Ryan Giggs is appointed as caretaker manager until a new permanent manager is identified.

What a relief! I used to think that the success of a football club was driven solely by the players on the field and that a manager's role would be peripheral but not any more. Ever since Moyes took over from Alex Ferguson, I have come to realise that a good manager is indeed always needed to push the team forward.

Unfortunately, Moyes has not been able to do that. The last 10 months under his guidance has been such a disaster for the club.

Knocked out of every conceivable tournament in England and Europe, in danger of missing out altogether from games in Europe the next season - certainly from the Champions League - and finishing in an absurdly low position in the Premier League.

An excerpt from theguardian newspaper summed up the feelings in the dressing room: "A lot of the analysis will inevitably feature on the way Moyes has "lost" the dressing room. The truth is actually that he had never had the dressing room. Not properly anyway. Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, important players at Old Trafford, could never be won over. Ryan Giggs, who understands the place as well as anyone, has been thinking about not just retiring but also quitting his coaching role and walking away from the club altogether. When senior players rebel, younger ones follow. Danny Welbeck, the only other Mancunian in the squad, has just let it be known that he wants a move." And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Anyway, it is time to look past this forgettable season and towards the future for my club's fortune....

Goodbye, Laurence How

On the way back from Hong Kong this afternoon, my wife brought this obituary in The Star newspaper to my attention. "You know him, don't you?" she asked. I was shocked and devastated.

Laurence How dead? He was one of my fast friends. I had known him through chess since the mid-1980s. He was then the secretary of the Malaysian Chess Federation and we got on very well. But excellent organiser though he was, he was bad at documentation. As a result, I've known people who had moaned about having to tie up his loose ends at the end of every chess project. That's the Laurence How I knew.

Apart from chess, our interests also extended to the Manchester United Football Club. When he left the post of MCF secretary in the mid-1990s, he set up the MUFC Supporters Club Of Malaysia in Petaling Jaya.

Football was Laurence's other passion. He told me once that he used to play football but a bad knee put an end to his playing days. In the early days of the supporters' club, I helped him out with a mailing list and website. Often, he tried to interest me in going to visit Old Trafford but I never could make the trip. There will not be any more trips with Laurence How. Going to miss you, Laurence...

UPDATE (19 Mar 2014):  I was talking with one of his nephews yesterday. He told me that Laurence had been complaining recently about a lump in his throat and had been taking Chinese medicine. But about a month ago, he was persuaded to be admitted to a hospital where they diagnosed him with leukemia. He had undergone a course of chemotherapy and was in rather high spirits. Then about a week ago, some complications set in and he was placed in intensive care. Towards the end, his blood pressure dropped which was never a good sign. At the final moment, even the doctors knew that there was nothing more that could be done. Laurence passed away at about 1.45pm on 15 March 2014.

UPDATE 2 (20 Mar 2014): Apparently, I have just been made aware that I should know Laurence from way before the mid-1980s. If he was the first Secretary of the Chess Association of Selangor, then I should have known him from 1974. But yes, with my memory jogged, I do remember we talking a lot about Prof Dr Lau Kam Seng who was the CAS president before he migrated to Australia in 1976 or 1977.  Laurence had such high regard for Prof Lau.

End of an era

First David Gill leaves, then Alex Ferguson retires, Paul Scholes quitting and now, David Beckham hangs up his old shoes...

A bookmark in football history

Just a few memorable pictures from the team's final home game under Alex Ferguson.

Red replacement

Yes, this is David Moyes in 1982.

Gaffer goes!

Thank you, Alex Ferguson, for 26+ wonderful years at Manchester United.

Number 20

900 games and counting!

"My goal when I was younger was to play for Manchester United just once. But then after that you get greedy. You want to be in the team all the time. Then you want to score goals.Then you get really greedy - you want to win trophies and then you win more trophies. All these things have happened to me. I realised my dream and at 38 I'm still living my dream. You can't ask for much more." 

Liverpool, oh, Liverpool

Head in the sand, foot in the mouth

Various British newspapers here, here, here, here and here are reporting some interesting comments from Sir Dave Richards, the chairman of the Premier League in England, who was speaking his mind at a post-sports security conference in Qatar. To round this off, it was reported that this fella tumbled flat-faced and fully-clothed into either a hotel swimming pool or a fountain.

Here is a choice excerpt: "England gave the world football. It gave the best legacy anyone could give. We gave them the game. For 50 years we owned the game. We were the governance of the game. We wrote the rules, designed the pitches and everything else. Then, 50 years later, some guy came along and said: 'You're liars,' and they actually stole it. It was called Fifa. Fifty years later another gang came along called Uefa and stole a bit more."

And another one: "(Football) started in Sheffield 150 years ago. We started the game and wrote the rules and took it to the world. The Chinese may say they own it but the British own it and we gave it to the rest of the world."

He also told his Qatari hosts they had their "heads in the sand" over limiting the sale of alcohol to five-star hotels at the 2022 World Cup: "In our country and in Germany we have a culture. We call it 'we would like to go for a pint and that pint is a pint of beer'. It is our culture as much as your culture is not drinking. There has to be a happy medium. If you don't do something about it, you are starting to bury your head in the sand a little bit because it needs addressing. You might be better off saying 'don't come'. But a World Cup without England, Germany, the Dutch, Danes and Scandinavians – it's unthinkable."

The dumberer

The blithering idiot who doesn't appreciate the value of money and can still smile as if nothing has happened even though he has lost STG197 million. 

Getting confused?

Huh! You'd think that they were part of the Malaysian football team!
Wishful thinking because they're not, they're not!

Sign language

How many fingers have we?