Early tomorrow morning, football fans throughout the world (almost), will be watching the much awaited Champion's League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona. Who will win this prestigous trophy, has yet to be known. pundits already throwing their money on United. Was it bcos of Ronaldo? or was it Rooney? Is Messi or Niesta going the steal the show from Rooney and Ronaldo? We'll see. It could be the night of the unsung heroes. Carrick or even Park J Sung could turn the magic for United. But I.m sure we gonna enjoyed the game. One thing for sure I'll be watching the game at home with my two sons. Too late (or too early) to go and watch the final at the 'Mamak's al-Maju' restaurant.
Talking about football, reminded me of the footballing years in Tiger Lane. We were crazy about football then. There were no Ronaldos or Rooneys or Giggs or Messis then. But the little plot of graas field between Green House and the school building (opposite the bathroom/toilets) was the place where we showed our talent. We produced some good footballers mind you. Sakaf Manaf was very good in dribbling and ball controll. He did wonders even within the tiny 'playing field!. i even wonder, until now, how come he never played for the school team. Even Shoib and Awe Adek learnt their football traits here. But sad to say, Green house never won the inter-house football game!.
When we were in Form Two, a game was organised by 'crazy and fanatic English football fans'. It was between 'Chelsea' and 'Leeds. The craze was because in 1970, Chelsea came out as F.A. Cup winners in Wembley beating Leeds 2-1 in a pulsating final (as was reported by the papers). We tried to emulate that scenario in Tiger Lane and organised the game. Among the 'Leeds' players were Arwah Kutik, Yunus, Mohd Nor Hassan, Lan Chik. For 'Chelsea' we had Awe Adek (he fantasized himself as Charlie Cook!) and Arwah Radhi Majid and Mutalib just to name a few. We imagines ourselves to the likes of Peter Osgood, Peter Lorimer, Peter Bonetti, Billy Bremner, Allan Clarke etc. There were no Drogba nor Lampard nor Ballack nor John Terry at that time!!
One player I admired most was Arwah Kutik. He was such a fantastic sportsman that he almost excelled in whatever game he played. He was the school and Perak under 18 goalkeeper, when most of us were struggling in the lower grades, i.e playing for the school under 16! Fancy that!. He even played rugby for the senior side after palying for a while with the under 16. But I had 2 wonderful memories on scoring goals against Kutik. Mind you he was 'the goalie' at the time! Both goals were more or less scored at the same spot and using the same techniques. Kutik must have thought at the time that I for sure would crossed the ball, since he had covered the angle, but instead lobbed the ball over him and scored the goals. He 'kena' twice, one during a game proper and one was a game during PE class. I was rather astonished when Rashid told me that he recalled the 'incidence' - of me scoring against Kutik during PE class. It was indeed a compliment when he said that.
Batch 73 did produce football players for the school, be it under 16 or under 18. We had Arwah Kutik, Arwah Radhi Majid, Wan Manshol, Mutalib, Yunus, Mohd Nor Hassan, Mohamad Saleh, Lan Chik, Ramlan Malek and Mail Gebang. We enjoyed the game and what mattered most was the comradeship, the thrive for winning and spirit of sportmanship.
For Arwah Kutik and Arwah Radhi Majid... al-Fatihah.
Those were the days - our only exposure to English football then was thru 'Star Soccer' on Sunday afternoons, if I recall correctly the commentator was Hugh Johns. It was of course three months late (or was it longer?). Even the magazines (Shoot, Goal etc) reached our shores some 3 to 4 months from their publication dates - having them air freighted would definetely render the prices to be out of reach for students like us.These notwithstanding we followed the English league with the same passion shown by the current generation. The only difference was that we tried to emulate our heroes' antics on the field itself whereas the current crop would resort to their playstation.
ReplyDeleteOh yes. I suucumbed to English football alright and spent my allowances and booked my Shoot magazines from SS Mubarak Bookstores and had them posted to me. I even ordered the footballl comic - the Scorcher and went crazy over Billy's Boot - a story about a young boy, who accidently found a old pair off boots belonging to an old soccer legend. Whenever he had them on, he will playing like the legendary fellow. And of course, every year I would be waiting to collect the League Footballl charts that Shoot offered!
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