Match #22 (12 June 10): Toppling Top Ten

A severely under-strength Marine Sunday, but bolstered by 3 young blood in Chi Ping, Yi Xian and Meya, turned the tide around against TopTen, whom we lost 3-4 on 24 Apr. Despite playing the last quarter of the match with 1 man less, YC was sent off for an early rest for an "act of violence" after he stepped in to fend off the aggression of Top Ten's No 15 on KH, we plouged through the match with composure. A brace from Kian Hwa, including an unbelievable header which all the other players would have simply chested, and another from Gan sealed a 3 - 1 win. Our top scorer, Teck Wah, turned provider for all the 3 goals. I would let Brandon report on how we conceded the goal :)

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 !

Match #20 (29 May 10): Lost 2-0 against Young Guns

Another bunch of young turks who are not even half our age, throw in the hot afternoon at 3pm, there you had it - we were up against nimble limbs, robust lungs and the element. We were crappy in the 1st half. They could have buried us there and then but had only 1 goal to show for, courtesy of some sloppy defending from us, allowing their skilful left winger to turn Chwee Leng, side-step Hock Leong and then blast past Brandon. The closest we came to scoring was Teck Wah's effort kissing the horizontal. 2nd Half saw a better performance from us. In Leo's words, KH had their right-back for lunch but his crosses were either overhit or well intercepted by their sweeper. Teck Chye missed a sitter when he had only the keeper to beat. Teck Wah's blasting shot from a free-kick rocked the left upright. But Young Guns rued their misses as well - a close-range effort that came off the foot of the post and a penalty saved by Brandon. As we were pressing for the equaliser, Young Guns launched a swift counter-attack that fully exploited the gap we left behind and our lack of pace. Their forward beat Brandon with a cannon ball. 2-0 loss was the outcome.

Match #19 (22 May 10): Whitewashing day

We played one of our best games in a long while against Mixes of White. We set out to contain their playmaker, No 8, and then to deploy Chor Guan to play behind our striker in the 2nd half to help shore up our midfield in the absence of Teck Chye and YC. We couldn't ask for a better outcome, with Chor Guan almost grabbing a hat-trick. Their No 8 was no doubt a class act and true enough, he gave us a couple of moments of fright early in the game, came close to score on two occasions and was their only threat to us throughout the match. But we did well to contain him and frustrate him to the extent that he called it quit mid way through the 2nd half.

I would not have described the result as a durian harvest season, despite the whitewash scoreline. We thoroughly deserved this win. Sure, Mixes of White had their chances, all except one came from their No 8. Whereas, several of us came close to add on to our tally. Of course, they brought out 2 stupendous saves from Seah in the 2nd half - a tip-over of a ball that was destined for the top right-hand corner and a point-blank save from a header. But we had Teck Wah hitting the frame early in the game, Gan's close-range header met a reflex save from their keeper, Kian Hwa's half-volley found the side netting and later saw his left-footed effort rattle the upright after a flowing move of football. Chor Guan completely missed a sitter that could have notched his hat-trick.

As commented by YC, all our goals were scored by our Young Guns. It was a match where the Young Guns were the Princesses and the Old Cocks played the Bridesmaids. The first 3 goals scored by Gan, Chor Guan and Teck Wah in that order were set up by Kian Hwa, Meng Hock and Weng Khong respectively. Then the Princesses decided they could do it without the Bridesmaids. Teck Wah picked up an overhit cross from KH and crossed in from the opposite flank for Chor Guan to head in his 2nd goal and our 4th. Teck Wah upped the ante and elevated his Princess status to a Queen with THE goal of the match - a brilliant solo effort to break the static defence line and beat their keeper with ease to complete his brace.

Match #18 (15 May 10): Won 6 - 2 against SingTel Kaki

Now, we know why Teck Wah lined up this opponent for us. Besides being a morale booster for us, it was also to help him boost his goal tally. Well, he helped himself to a hat-trick and was a constant threat down the right flank. Yong Chua contributed a brace, including the best goal of the match. Kok Hock opened his goal account with his 1st goal of the season, a coolly-taken shot from outside the box, after being set up by Teck Chye.

Match #17 (8 May 10): Drew 2 - 2 with Seafoodies

Again we melted in the morning sun at St Wilfrid, where we have been struggling at for quite a while. We should have won this match. We scored 2 good goals but also conceded 2 through lapses in concentration. But Seafoodies had to scramble to produce 2 goaline clearances to deny us the win. We were rather compact, restricting them to either shoot from distance or pass down the middle that posed no real threat to us. The heat sapped us and twice we lost our concentration and they capitalised on them to equalise.

Teck Wah got us our opening goal after a string of passes, particularly the final defence-splitting pass from Kok Hock, set him free to shoot the ball past the onrushing keeper. Before that, he lobbed the ball over the keeper from a tight angle but Seafoodies' last man got back in time to prevent the ball from settling into the net. Seafoodies equalised at the dying moments of the 1st half when their playmaker No 8 connected from a corner. That caught everyone flatfooted and their striker nodded the ball past the rooted Seah. 1-1 at half-time.

Yong Chua almost restored the lead for us but his goalbound header was scrambled away for a corner. But YC's next header from another corner helped set up our 2nd goal. Seafoodies' keeper couldn't hold on to YC's header and dropped the ball on the line. Weng Khong was at the right place to whack the ball in. Our joy was shortlived. The heat got the better of us, their right winger wriggled a free route towards our goal and unleashed a shot that cannoned off the bar. We failed to clear the rebound and their striker pounced onto the loose ball for their 2nd equaliser. 2-2.

Match #16 (2 May 10): A Labored Win over Pink

As usual, we arrived early. What's unusual was referee was early too. Some were asking where's the boss? He was in Taipei for whatever reasons....he he! Without the boss around, we were probably still half asleep when Pink opponent opened the scoring within minutes of the start. Think some of us had not even touched the ball. One could almost feel the wrath of the boss's roar from Taipei. We began to take control of the game thereafter. It did not take long for our goal to come. Gan took advantage of a defensive mix up to put us back into the game. Opponent was younger and full of running. Their only Malay player, a very young chap, was always a threat. Then a moment of genius from Chye put us 2-1 up. We were waiting but Chye decided to send his corner kick directly into goal instead.

Not long into the 2nd half, opp equalized with a deflected shot that flew over Seah into goal. Both teams then went in search of the winner. Off a freekick by Wah, both Mike & Chye went for the same ball. Instead of seeing them bundling the ball over the goal line, we saw two men in the net. YC was in the right place to first time the loose high ball back towards goal. Keeper was probably still distracted by Mike & Chye's little 'tete a tete' on the floor. He had a touch with his foot but it was not enough to keep the ball out. Pink went all out for the equaliser but we held on to grind out a deserving 3-2 victory.