Yesterday’s 11-A-Side Game

After our 11-a-side game in May, I said we’d try to arrange another one within the next three months. We just about made it within that time frame, albeit by combining with Damian’s Nokia team-mates. Mayflower Secondary School is in a less busy part of Ang Mo Kio, near the junction of Avenues 1 and 3. Although it is easier to get to than lots of other places in Ang Mo Kio, quite a few people got a bit lost and were late.

With the sun blazing at noon, Damian SMSed me his concerns that it would be very hot playing mid-afternoon. However, a burst of rain half an hour before we were due to start washed away Damian’s fears. The rest of the afternoon was cloudy, with little patches of drizzle, perfect weather for football.

Our opponents, my former firm, Shook Lin & Bok (SLB), were playing 11-a-side for the first time in many years (the last one I remember was about 7 years ago). This was their first practice match before a big game against the the KL firm of the same name (with which they share a common history) when the two firms meet in Kuala Lumpur in October to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the original firm.

At 3.15 pm, my ex-colleagues from Shook Lin & Bok (SLB) were short of players, with both the captain, Kenneth, and the player-manager, David, late. Kenneth was lost in Ang Mo Kio for about 20 minutes. For a while, it looked like Faith, SLB’s Professional Development & Knowhow Manager and coordinator of the team, would have to play ((!) probably for the first time ever), and that we’d have to loan them a couple of players.

By about 3.30 pm, SLB had just about enough players to start, albeit without Kenneth and David, who had just arrived and were not ready. We provided Shankar, Edardy and Sushil to the combined team’s starting 11.  They all started in defence, and contributed to an impenetrable defence in the first half. Damian forgot to inform his Nokia people that we had switched from black to white, so instead, we wore the yellow bibs he brought along.

Sushil in action. Shankar further back.

Damian was so impressed by Edardy in defence that he kept him on until almost the end of the game, the only player on the combined team to play almost the whole 80 minutes or so.

John (extreme left) on his “loan spell”. The referee (in white) in the middle.

Nicolas, champing at the bit, was soon on in attack, and scored. Lacking organization on the field, SLB found themselves 0-5 down within about 20 minutes. Kenneth and David came on, and started organizing the team. We also loaned them John, and then me, up to half-time. The score at half time was 7-0 to the combined team. SLB worked on their organization at half time and had a much better second half.

John and I rejoined the combined team for the second half. With Damian calling the rolling substitutions, everyone had a spell out.

Sushil said he had to leave after 10 minutes of the second half.  Twenty minutes into the second half, he was still on the field, but finally he had to go.

With the sun occasionally peeking out from behind the clouds, SLB had a much better second half, even scoring 2 goals, as the game ended 12-2 to the combined team.  2-5 in the second half wasn’t too bad, considering it was their first 11-a-side game in many years, and I had for a long time thought they didn’t have enough players for 11-a-side games.

Nicolas grabbed a hat-trick, and had a couple of vehement and animated shouts for penalties (when isn’t Nicolas vehement and animated?) turned down by the referee in the second half. On the other hand, the referee also controversially blew for offside 2 or 3 times in the second half when the combined team were through on goal, even though he couldn’t possibly have seen any player offside. In fact, on a couple of those occasions, there was clearly an SLB player in defence playing us onside. The referee was an easy-going guy, and I guess he was trying to keep the score as respectable as he could for SLB.

The player through on one of those occasions was John, after a neat one-two with me.  On another occasion, good interplay between John and me ended with my shot from just inside the top left corner of the penalty box hitting the side-netting of the SLB goal.

Damian’s Nokia team-mates were 12 in number, while we provided 6 players (Shankar, Edardy, Sushil, Nicolas, John and me). Nam pulled out as he was not well, while Yuchi later SMSed me to say he was injured.  I don’t know what happened to Rajesh and Amit.  I understand Rajesh also played yesterday morning and might have played again last night, so unlikely as it may sound, perhaps he overdosed on football!

Damian’s Nokia team-mates were a fun bunch, and Damian is keen to have such combined team 11-a-side games at regular intervals.

Some of the Nokia guys would also like to join us for our regular weekly sessions, so we might see them soon. From the SLB side, Kenneth and Kian Kiat have played in our weekly sessions before, and hopefully, they’ll join us more regularly. Sriram is on the Contact List, and perhaps he’ll join in our weekly sessions soon.

I’ll put up more pictures after I receive them from Damian.