Routine Sessions, FAFI Games, Mini-Tournaments, And Representative Games
Our core activity remains 5 or 6 a-side indoor football. If we have enough players, and the larger pitch is available, we can have 7 or 8-a-side indoor football at Turf City. 4-a-side is also an option at The Cage.
The routine sessions are organized in accordance with the routine session system and played in accordance with the routine session rules and principles. As the routine sessions are open to anyone, the system and the rules and principles are designed to accommodate a large number of participants of varying ages, playing styles and abilities.
Places for routine sessions are filled primarily on the blog.
Monday night at Turf City is FAFI – a group of regular participants who run the game themselves. The reference to “FAFI” is a throwback to the regular games on Monday nights before the blog was set up, when it used to be a group of us playing just once a week. Currently, places for the FAFI game are filled via SMS. Any places that remain or become available can be filled through the blog.
If any of the routine sessions develop a regular crowd who would like to run their game themselves, similar arrangements can be made.
If a routine session is oversubscribed, and we can get up to twice as many players as usual, and a second pitch is available at the same venue, we can have an impromptu mini-tournament – either a mini-league or a mini knock-out competition. To date, we have had two impromptu mini-tournaments:
- A mini-league on Thursday, 26 February 2009, at The Cage.
- A mini-league on Wednesday, 11 March 2009, at The Cage.
We have also had two scheduled mini-tournaments:
- A pre-UEFA Champions League mini knock-out competition in the early morning of Thursday, 28 May 2009, at The Cage.
- A weekend mini-league last Sunday, 26 July 2009, at Turf City.
We also came very close to having an impromptu mini-tournament at Sports Planet on 24 June 2009 when we got up to 17 players and had two pitches, but unlike at The Cage, we can’t manage with teams of 4 players at Sports Planet.
Scheduled mini-tournaments will be few and far in-between, but impromptu ones can arise whenever circumstances allow.
Representative games take place when we have an offer for a game from another team, so we put together a team to play as FIOFAFI. We’ve had the following representative games so far:
- Against The Cage management (5-a-side) on Tuesday, 23 December 2008 at The Cage. We won 9-4.
- Against Dennis W’s team (7-a-side) on Saturday, 29 March 2009 at Turf City. We lost 1-11.
- Re-match against Dennis W’s team (7-a-side) on Saturday, 2 May 2009 at Turf City. We lost 3-4.
- Against Mofoz113 United (6-a-side) on Saturday, 6 June 2009, at Turf City. We won 15-3.
- Against Erik and his friends (5-a-side) on Sunday, 19 July 2009, at Turf City. We won 10-3.
More significantly, we missed out on a chance to play against the “Singapore Legends” at the beginning of March of this year.
All our 11-a-side games so far this year have been representative games:
- Against Steve F’s Saturday team on Saturday, 17 January 2009, at Meridian JC (Pasir Ris), organized by Andy M. We lost 2-3.
- Re-match against Steve F’s Saturday team on Saturday, 21 February 2009, at Meridian JC (Pasir Ris), organized by Andy M. We won 3-1.
- Against Kevin and Mark L’s church team on Saturday, 25 April 2009, at East Spring Secondary School (Tampines), organized by Kevin. We won 4-3.
- Against the British Club 2nd XI on Saturday, 27 June 2009, at the British Club’s ground off Dunearn Road, organized by John S. We lost 2-5.
We also had two 11-a-side games last year:
- A representative game against Kevin and Mark L’s other 11-a-side team, on Saturday, 10 May 2008, at Tampines SAFRA. We lost 2-3.
- A combined team with Damian’s Nokia team against my former colleagues at Shook Lin & Bok on Saturday, 30 August 2008, at Mayflower Secondary School (Ang Mo Kio). We won 12-2.
I’m leaving it to other participants to organize any future 11-a-side games. If we do play 11-a-side games in the future as “FIOFAFI”, I’d like to develop a more effective system by which players are selected and positions determined.
Ferment: Indefatigable Fun For Adults 
We can play 5 or 6-a-side within the lines on a small pitch at Turf City.
The larger pitch at Turf City is formed by opening up the netting between two small pitches, and is slightly more than twice the size of a small pitch (if you include the space between the pitches.
The larger pitch can accommodate 7 or 8-a-side, but I imagine it could even accommodate a 9-a-side game – 18 players (a lot less than 24 players on 2 small pitches). Anyone disagree?
If it hits 20, then we go to 4 teams of 5. We can then go up to 24 (4 teams of 6).
For turf city, 8 a side is perfect… More seems crowded to me…
I think it is agreed that 9-a-side on the big pitch at Turf City is too crowded – even 9 v 8, as we had yesterday, is too crowded.
We had 9 v 8 again on the big pitch at Turf City on Sunday. Again, a bit too crowded.
Before I took over organizing the weekly 5, 6 or 7-a-side football in November 2007, we played 7-a-side games from time to time:
• When we had 14 players at Bukit Timah campus, we’d push the goal posts back to make the hard court bigger. We continued to do this from time to time until we stopped playing at Bukit Timah campus in October 2008.
• Before November 2007, whenever George got the small pitch at St. Wilfred’s, we’d play 6 or 7-a-side.
Since we first played on the big pitch at Turf City in October 2008, we’ve had the following 7 or 8-a-side games there:
• 7-a-side game on Monday, 27 October 2008 (Deepavali).
• 7-a-side representative game against Dennis W’s team on Saturday, 28 March 2009.
• 7-a-side representative game (re-match) against Dennis W’s team on Saturday, 2 May 2009.
• 8-a-side session on Sunday, 2 August 2009. It was scheduled as a 9-a-side, but it was played largely as an 8-a-side, due to a pull-out, late arrivals and an injury.
• 8-a-side FAFI game on Monday, 10 August 2009 (public holiday for National Day).
We’ll be having another 8-a-side session today at Turf City. It may become a regular thing.
8 a sides are awesome.. specially for noobs or re-learners like me.. they give u ample space to control the ball before someone comes running in. Also much easier to work up a move.. I have loved the two 8-a-sides I have played so far.. helps play a more beautiful passing game.. please make it a regular..
I liked the way whites played this Sunday, a lot more passing, quite a few overhead passes to timmy on the left from the right (some really good passes by our right winger, forgot his name :S)..
heck, I’ld love to play on full length pitch someday..
Balach has suggested that we could play on the big pitch even for a 6-a-side. I’ve continued the discussion here.
We had a representative game at The Cage on Thursday, 13 August 2009, against Suraj’s team, as we were short of players for our routine session. It was the first time I converted a routine session to a representative game.
When take up was slow for the Saturday session at Sports Planet on 29 August 2009, I considered switching the game to Turf City for a re-match against Dennis W’s team. In the end, we got enough players for the usual session at Sports Planet.
Although his team weren’t able to make it on 29 August 2009, Dennis W SMSed me to say his team were interested in a 7-a-side re-match on a Saturday evening. I informed him that Sunday was more likely.
When take up was again slow for Sports Planet on 12 September 2009, I switched the game to The Cage to broaden the pool of players. I also considered a re-match against Suraj’s team, but they were not available, and in the end, we had enough players for our own session.
Hairuddin and Mark T proposed a representative game against their company team from 10 to 11 pm at Sports Planet on Wednesday, 16 September 2009. Mark T also asked whether we could also use our routine slot from 9 to 10 pm that day at Sports Planet for a game against his company team.
As take up for the routine session was slow, I agreed, and we had back-to-back representative games that day against Mark T’s company team. They were actually practice matches for his team for a forthcoming tournament.
Mark T spoke to me last Friday to suggest further practice matches for his team, as they had other tournaments coming up later in the year as well.
At that stage, take up was slow for both for a 7 or 8-a-side for the Sunday evening session at Turf City and the extra session on the Monday public holiday at The Cage, so I asked him if he was interested in putting a team together for either or both. He said he would get back to me.
I also asked Dennis W if his team interested in a re-match for either slot. Dennis W’s response was that his team were only interested in a 7-a-side game. However, he later came back to me to say his team were not available for Sunday.
By Sunday morning, we were down to 8 players for the evening session at Turf City, so it would have been good if Mark T had been able to put a team together to play against us. However, he SMSed me in the early afternoon to say he didn’t have anyone. By then, it was too late for me to get anyone else. If I’d tried earlier, I should have been able to get at least 2 players to make 10 for a 5-a-side.
Dennis W SMSed me on Monday to say he had a team of 5 for a game that evening, but by then, the extra Monday evening session at The Cage was full.
In future, I am more likely to cancel a routine session if it is short of players than try to convert it into a representative game. It is just too much work. Representative games can be organized ad hoc through OPSAGE.
On the other hand, representative games are an additional way of picking up new players.
We managed two more representative games this week, Monday night at The Cage against Suraj’s team, and Wednesday night at Sports Planet against Mark T’s team.
Perhaps if we get to 5 players two days before the session, but don’t look like getting to 10, I will see if I can line up suitable opponents for the 5 to play against. So far, we’ve played against Dennis W’s team abd Suraj’s team twice each, against Mark T’s team three times, and against Mofoz113 United once.
The teams of Dennis W and Mark T are younger and fitter than us, while Suraj’s team are about the same standard as us (which makes for a better game). When we play against the teams of Dennis W or Mark T, I’ll try to make sure we put together a strong team, which works better with ad hoc games, rather than converting routine sessions to representative games.
From now on, I’ll treat such conversions as an alternative to a routine session in the same way I treat impromptu mini-tournaments. It all depends on the numbers.
There may be an element of selection for representative games, to make sure that our side is roughly of the same strength as our opponents.
There may be an even greater element of selection for scheduled representative games.
After the “brokered” game between Elvin’s team and Neil M/Nick A’s team on 27 December 2009, there was a representative game between Elvin’s team and a FIOFAFI team on 3 January 2010.
The Sunday evening bookings were also used a couple of times towards the end of last year for representative games against Jye’s team.
Yaseen has turned next Tuesday’s session at The Cage into a representative game by taking up 5 places. Mark T has done the same with next Wednesday’s session at Sports Planet by taking up 5 places.
I have two concerns about regular sessions being used for representative games or brokered games:
● Representative or brokered games deprive several regular participants the opportunity to play that session.
● In regular sessions, an effort is made to make sides even, and to keep the game friendly. In representative games, no effort is made to keep the sides even, and there is a risk of the game being less than friendly.
As I said a couple of weeks ago:
I will leave the games next Tuesday and Wednesday as representative games, but I will soon set out how and when regular sessions can be used for representative games.
To avoid places being reserved, whether to convert a regular game into a representative game by reserving half the places, or for any other purpose, places can only be filled by a named player.
If anyone fills names for half the places in a game, whether they can all be on one team is something they can discuss with the other players for that game.
If anyone would like to arrange a representative game or to broker a game between two teams, put forward your proposal under the latest “OPSAGE” post.
Although I am not keen on having 3 teams playing over 2 hours, it’s alright once in a while in the form of a 3-team mini-tournament. Last night’s session at The Cage was the second time we’ve had one, the first having been organised by Kevin A in the evening of Saturday, 14 November 2009, at Sports Planet.