A Tiring Day

The last day of school, Mediacorp celebrities (all gals, no guys) in my despo school, report card day…in other words it was a crazy day with picture taking with the celebs and teachers who may not be teaching us next year. We will also be having our O level Chinese this coming wednesday, sad huh? Thinking I’m straying off from football in this post? Think again. Just wanted to start off by giving you an idea about how life here goes about. The Office Manager (OM) of our hostel had wanted us to take part in this competition with another hostel, Anglo Chinese School
Institution (ACSI) or something like that. We thought we were going to play captain’s ball till the last minute, but were then told that we were going to play street soccer, so we weren’t mentally prepared but we really didn’t care. It was just another game which was supposed to be fun.

We had to walk to the place and got lost instead, but luckily we managed to get there fashionably late as always. For the first time ever, I would rather have been sleeping on my comfortable bed than playing football. We were already exhausted by the time we got there, but we got on with the stupid match. The ref was our OM who wanted to prove he was not bias towards us by favoring the opposition, or in my friend’s words, he just didn’t know how to ref a game, and to think he was ref for street soccer, basketball and captain’s ball. Anyway we got the game underway and I got to say that they dominated, but we were resilient. They even had a coach and tactics, quite amusing considering that our team was playing together for the first time. I expected myself to be rusty after not touching a football since the last term; I was proven wrong, I was worse than first expected. The space available was so little (imagine 14 guys playing street soccer on a basketball court) and the goal was a table not much bigger than the ball.

We conceded a penalty and they practically passed the ball into the goal as the ref said that no keeper was needed for the penalty. Losing by a score of 1-0 at half time, the ref decided to make it a 5 v 5 match instead. We swapped places quite often and I started the 2nd half at the back. Defending the goal, I slid a player and twisted my ankle in the process, that’s the fourth time this year on the same ankle, bad luck maybe? They were technically superior, but we played a more attacking game and were a constant threat to them. Then, 1 of their players was shielding the ball from me, so I body checked him and he fell. It was quite peculiar as he was a junior college guy who was much stronger built than me, it was quite impossible for me to exert that much force to hit him down. I tracked back and apologized to him, but he just got up and started pushing me in the chest asking me what that was. I reacted before I could think and shoved him back; luckily we didn’t come to blows as some guys pulled us apart. A guy from ASCI told me to chill, but it wasn’t my fault was it? I know I lost my head there and shouldn’t have reacted as I did, but it was an instinctive reaction, given the fact that I was apologizing to him at that time. The idiot then pretended to make peace with me by walking up and offered his hand for me to shake. I did just that, but the blood in my veins was already boiling. This is not a first, the incident I mean. I previously had 2 bust ups with other players, but nothing serious. I just don’t understand why people would want to pull us apart when we just argue about something. Yes, it was probably for prevention, but most of the time it’s unnecessary.

This may not make my case against the ACSI idiot, and yes it was partly my fault for reacting the way I did, but if you had seen the look on his face when he got up and walked towards me to start a shoving contest and then pretending that he was the good guy who was actually the victim, you would be disgusted. I really sucked during the match, but in the last minute, I had a chance to equalize. I threaded the ball towards the ‘goal’ after some good work by my team mates, and as the ball was nearing the table, I raised my hand, preparing to celebrate. Lady luck was not on my side; the defender managed to get a foot to the ball right at the death and hooked it away. My hand which was raised was place over my face, covering it in disbelief. The game ended with us losing 1-0, but all was not lost as our basketball team and captain’s ball team thrashed ASCI, totally annihilated them.

I treat people the same way they treat me, but reacting in such a way as I did was unacceptable. Keeping a cool head in a heated situation is never easy, but I guess I’ll just have to learn. A perfect example of a person losing his nerve just below, seen it before? Of course you have, it’s the most famous head butt in the world.Enjoy.....
Zidane sending a message to Materazzi...what happened to the old fashioned letters?