Match #21 (5 June 10): Leng scored the winning goal ...!

Match report contributed by YC

These days, it's probably easier to strike 4D than to find any opponent older than MS. So it was hardly surprising as we geared up this morning for yet another battle of seasoned worn out limbs vs youthful flourishing exuberance.....reminded me of the sakura I saw in Hokkaido last week. These young boys or rather young men had just completed OCS and were commissioned as officers in Feb. They are at the prime fitness age of around 20 yrs old, not even half the age of most of us. As Leo revealed later that had he not been careful during his Sheares Hall days, he could well be the father of one of these boys....oops...I mean men..( Or Ci fer ....no longer boys).

As if facing such young opponent was not tough enough, MS decided to shower some fatherly love by gifting them the opening goal within 5 mins of the start. Young Officers (YO) sent in a freekick, Brandon tried punching it out but ball bounced off Kwan and landed right in the path of one YO player, who slammed into the open goal. 1-0. YO was full of running & covering every inch of the pitch speedily. They had better possession as MS struggled to keep the ball early on. So it was not surprising that YO increased their lead soon. They passed & dribbled their way, combining well to score a good 2nd goal.

Was MS going to face a massacre? Of course not. We may be oldies but we had fought back even from 1-5 down before so 2-0 was no big deal. On one of those rare attacks, Wah tried dribbling into the penalty box, but lost possesion & tripped. The ball bounced off a few YO players and landed back near Wah, who was still on the ground. Somehow he managed to squeeze out the extra bit to hit the ball towards goal while half standing. Think keeper was caught by surprise. 2-1. MS was fired up! Our defenders Guan, Kwan, Leng, Leo & Ng read their moves well & closed down their players quickly with Chye & Simon helping out in the middle and Khong & Wah trying to send useful balls in. Gan was the lonely striker with YC & Kok Hock supporting the attacks whenever possible. We knew we couldn't match them for speed & fitness. So off a freekick in our own half, Kok Hock decided to aim for YC who was positioned with the YO stopper just outside the penalty box. YC used whatever body strength from his skinny frame to hold YO stopper off & let the ball bounced. He turned and gently tap the bouncing ball away from the last man. As YC was ready to shoot, Wah came from the side & placed the ball beyond the keeper. This was a classic case of reaping the fruit that someone else sow. Luckily he scored. So 2-2. Game on!

During half time, we discussed our strategy for 2nd half. Simon suggested changing our formation to 4-3-1-2. We thought their defence was vulnerable to high balls and having another striker would put more pressure on them. True enough, Kok Hock, by now earning himself a reputation of sending in useful high crosses over their defence, chipped another beauty for Wah to lob over the keeper. For the first time, Old Birds were leading, what a surprise!

We played a compact game and were able to hold them off pretty well. But YO moved up a gear & equalised with another well taken goal to make the score 3-3. The game was pretty even but unfortunately for MS, YO took the lead when a square ball sent in by YO speedy & skilful right winger was sidestepped into goal by Leng like a true striker in the box, albeit wrong end of the field. But MS was not going to take that lying down. We attacked in search of the eaqualiser. We thought we had done it when Wah produced another lob but it hit the bar. On another occasion, Guan did an overhead kick but the ball went over. On the other end, we were vulnerable to their counterattacks but defence played superly. Brandon also saved MS on a number of occasions when they broke thru the defence.

So we narrowly lost the game 4-3. We thought we deserved a draw but we were satisfied that we gave them a good fight. Note than in addition to the huge age & fitness gap, YO had more players than MS's 13. So well done, everyone !