By Les Tan/Red Sports with additional information by Jan Lin and Singapore Sports Fan
The ethnic background of the current Singapore squad is a significant change from the past. Back (from left to right): Daniel Bennett, Noh Alam Shah, Mustafic Fahrudin, Hassan Sunny, Baihakki Khaizan. Front (from left to right): Noh Rahman, Agu Casmir, Shahril Ishak, Shaiful Esah, Ridhuan Muhd, John Wilkinson. (Photo © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports file photo)
Over the last few years, the Singapore national football team has evolved to look more like a club than a traditional national team.
Aleksandar Duric and Mustafic Fahrudin are Serbian, Agu Casmir and Precious Emuejeraye are Nigerian, Shi Jiayi is Chinese, Daniel Bennett and John Wilkinson are English.
They all are now Singaporean citizens of course and Mustafic, Agu, Precious, Jiayi and Bennett came through the Football Association of Singapore Foreign Talent Scheme.
Aleksandar Duric and John Wilkinson are the only two naturalised Singaporeans who applied for citizenship on their own because they decided to make Singapore their home.
Long gone are the days when a Singapore football team actually mirrored Singapore society.
In 1966, Singapore had a football squad that finished fourth in the Asian Games. The ethnic breakdown in the squad saw one Eurasian, seven Malays and eight Chinese players.
The 1966 squad is as follows:
Goalkeepers: Wilfred Skinner (Eurasian?), Idros Albar (Malay)
Fullbacks: Samad Abdullah (Malay), Freddie Chew (Chinese), Matthew Chin (Chinese)
Halfbacks: Quah Kim Siak (Chinese), Ibrahim Awang (Malay), Lee Teng Yee (Chinese), Hussein Abdullah (Malay)
Forwards: Andy Yeo (Chinese), Majid Ariff (Malay), Quah Kim Lye (Chinese), Hussein Aljunied (Malay), Yong Chong Fatt (Chinese), Leong Han Kar (Chinese), Quah Kim Swee (Chinese), Mohamed Ali (Malay)
The starting XI of the celebrated 1977 Malaysia Cup squad coached by Choo Seng Quee had four Chinese, six Malay and two Indian players. Edmund Wee replaced an Eurasian keeper, Eric Paine.
The 1977 squad is as follows:
Goalkeepers: Edmund Wee (Chinese) (reserve: Lim Chiew Peng (Chinese))
Defenders: Robert Sim (Chinese), Samad Allapitchay (Malay), Syed Mutalib (Malay), Hasli Ibrahim (Malay)
Midfielders: Zainal Abidin (Malay), V Khanisen (Indian), S. Rajagopal (Indian), Mohd Noh (Malay Chinese),
Strikers: Dollah Kassim (Malay), Quah Kim Song (Chinese)
In 1980, a Singapore team coached by Jita Singh took part in the 1980 Pre-Olympics Qualifying Tournament and reached the final after famously scalping North Korea 3-1 and China 1-0. It also defeated India 1-0 and Sri Lanka 3-0.
The only defeat it suffered in the round robin matches was a 0-3 loss to Iran.
Singapore finished second in the group behind Iran, to earn a place in the final against Iran. There, we lost 0-4.
That squad had four Chinese, eight Malay, one Eurasian and two Indian players.
The 1980 squad is as follows (N.B. info may be incomplete):
Goalkeepers: Edmund Wee (Chinese), David Lee (Chinese)
Defenders: Hasli Ibrahim (Malay), Jeffrey Lazaroo (Eurasian), Syed Mutalib (Malay), Samad Allapitchay (capt) (Malay), Ghazali Ghani (Malay)
Midfield: Rahim Hussein (Malay), Lim Tang Boon (Chinese), Hashim Hosni (Malay), R Suriamoorthy (Indian), Jai Prakash (Indian)
Strikers: Wong Kok Choy (Chinese), Fandi Ahmad (Malay), Mohammed Noh (Malay)
The squad that won the last Malaysia Cup in 1994 before Singapore pulled out of that tournament had five Malays, four Chinese, one Indian and two foreigners.
That 1993-1994 era squad is as follows (N.B. info incomplete):
Goalkeeper: David Lee (Chinese)
Defenders: Lim Tong Hai (Chinese), Jang Jung (Korean)
Midfielders: Nazri Nasir (Malay), Rafi Ali (Malay), Malek Awab (Malay), Lee Man Hon (Chinese)
Strikers: Fandi Ahmad (Malay), V. Sundramoorthy (Indian), Abbas Saad (Australian), Steven Tan (Chinese)
The squad that won the 1998 Tiger Cup had one Chinese, three Indian and 16 Malay players.
The 1998 squad is as follows:
Goalkeepers: Rezal Hassan (Malay), Bashir Khan (Malay)
Defenders: R Sasikumar (Indian), Kadir Yahaya (Malay), Aide Iskandar (Malay), Dzulkifli Jumadi (Malay), S Subramani (Indian), Lim Soon Seng (Chinese)
Midfielders: Zulkarnaen Zainal (Malay), Rafi Ali (Malay), Gusta Guzarishah (Malay), Hafizat Jauharmi (Malay), Nazri Nasir (Malay), Mohammed Noor Ali (Malay), Rudy Khairon (Malay), Samawira Basri (Malay), Basri Halis (Malay)
Forwards: Ahmad Latiff (Malay), Joseph Pragasam (Indian), Nahar Daud (Malay)
The current 2009 squad that featured in the recent 2008 ASEAN Football Championship (Suzuki Cup) has one Eurasian, two Nigerians, two Serbs and two English.
The 2009 squad is as follows:
Goalkeepers: Lionel Lewis (Eurasian), Hassan Sunny (Malay), Hyrulnizam Juma’at (Malay)
Defenders: Daniel Bennett (English), Baihakki Khaizan (Malay), Noh Rahman (Malay), Precious Emuejeraye (Nigerian), Ismail Yunos (Malay), Juma’at Jantan (Malay), Rosman Sulaiman (Malay), Shaiful Esah (Malay)
Midfielders: Shahril Ishak (Malay), Muhd Ridhuan (Malay), Mustafic Fahrudin (Serbian), Shi Jiayi (Chinese), Isa Halim (Malay), John Wilkinson (English), Mustaqim Manzur (Malay)
Strikers: Indra Sahdan Daud (Malay), Noh Alam Shah (Malay), Agu Casmir (Nigerian), Aleksandar Duric (Serbian)
Obviously, there are many Chinese, Indian and Eurasian footballers that can play football at a national. They just aren’t in the national age-group set up.
At A Division level, there have been some exceptional football talent but the national age-group set up doesn’t attract them.
Why?
A cited reason is always the need to concentrate on studies. However, it may be more of a smokescreen than anything else because we’ve been told that some student athletes are actively discouraged to join the national set up because the players come back to the school less fit.
In other instances, some Chinese, Eurasians and Indian players find themselves shut out on the pitch because the Malay players play among themselves.
The other natural barrier is language, with the Malays, the dominant group, generally conversing in Malay and the rest feeling left out.
In an earlier time, Chinese, Eurasians and Indians took the trouble to learn Malay and Singapore society on the ground got along in a mixture of Pasar (market) Malay and English. It was not uncommon to see kids from different races playing together outdoors. That is not the situation anymore.
As a result, the pool of available talent has shrunk and the FAS Foreign Talent Scheme was just an acknowledgment of the situation on the ground.
The recent turnouts for an FAS trial for the new Under-8, Under-10 and Under-12 squad confirms this trend, as reported by Today (The mix can only get better; Monday, February 2, 2009).
Most of the kids who turned up were Malay kids with a very small turnout of kids from other races.
If it wasn’t for the fact that English is the medium of instruction, our society would be even more polarised on the ground. As it is, the youth are growing up in language enclaves, with certain sports dominated by one language group.
Having a policy of coaches speaking English only to school squads will go a long way in reclaiming lost talents for all sports, so that boys of different ethnic backgrounds can play together based purely on talent, and not just the ethnic language they happen to share with the coach. © Red Sports
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I AGREE WITH THE AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE TOTALLY
i think they should have terry butcher as the coach of singapore national team
Please don’t blame on certain ethnic group. I myself had played with some of better Chinese and eurasians players in the 80’s. It is natural that Malay players will communicate in their language among themselves but they can converse in English as well.They never shut out any particular group on the pitch, but some of the non-Malay players always looked down on the Malay players because of their inferior academic achievement. There’s an incident that a well-known player was questioned of how much he earned as a pro footballer, for he had only a ITE cert. They seem never know how to distiguish between academic and sports.
My position is this:
No one should look down on another person just because of his income or educational background.
Secondly, it is always polite to communicate in a language which doesn’t make anyone feel left out. So if a bunch of chinese singaporeans talk only in chinese, and there are people in their company who don’t speak chinese, it’s usually considered rude.
The article I wrote is not blaming any ethnic group.
Secondly, it doesn’t bring up the issue of the players academic or education background.
Please don’t read into my words what I have not actually said.
I am not saying that the points you raised are not legitimate but they are not what I raised.
Apparently, Terry Pathmanathan was captain! I wouldn’t remember him, he retired when I was 6, ha ha.
Oops, I think I was too young to remember those who are on the bench other than super sub #14 Steven Tan!
I was 8 years old when I followed that team!
But if wikipedia is reliable then… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Association_of_Singapore
: )
Terry Pathmanathan – was he in the squad, you think?
The lineup that SSF gave is missing a few defenders!
Hi Les
My all-time favourite national team was the Singapore team that took part in the 1980 Pre-Olympics Qualifying Competition.
Coached by Jita Singh, it reached the final of the tournament, after famously scalping North Korea 3-1 and China 1-0. It also defeated India 1-0 and Sri Lanka 3-0.
The only defeat it suffered in the round robin matches was a 0-3 loss to Iran.
Singapore finished second in the group behind Iran, to earn a place in the final against iran. There, we lost 0-4.
It was one of the first tournaments that I’d ever watched. I was nine then. I also remember the tournament vividly because Ovaltine launched a commemorative sticker book of the competition that year and you had to buy Ovaltine products for stickers of the players. I managed to complete one book and spent all my time remembering the statistics of the players.
The team was made up of
Goalkeeper – Edmund Wee, David Lee.
Defenders: Hasli Ibrahim, Jeffrey Lazaroo, Syed Mutalib, Samad Allapitchay (capt), Ghazali Ghani
Midfield: Rahim Hussein, Lim Tang Boon, Hashim Hosni, R Suriamoorthy, Jai Prakash
Strikers: Wong Kok Choy, Fandi Ahmad, Mohammed Noh
*I’m sure there were other players but I can’t remember their names
Thanks for bringing up this topic. The way you’ve chronologically listed the national teams of the past four decades is a telling indictment of the current state of the national team, and the state of football as it is played and conducted at the grassroots.
I’d also written a couple of entries on this on my blog in the past. Can I invite your readers to check them out?
http://singaporesportsfan.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/two-rays-of-hope-for-the-young-aspiring-singapore-chinese-footballer/
http://singaporesportsfan.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/singapore-v-iran-then-and-now-shudder/
Hey thanks for bringing that up, singaporesportsfan. Brings back memories!
I think we should mention how it is not too long ago (in the 1990s) that we saw how powerful it is to have a good mixed/balance of Chinese, Malays, Indians and foreign talents in one squad.
That 1993-1994 era was my all-time dream team.
Chinese (Lim Tong Hai, David Lee, Steven Tan, Lee Man Hon)
Malays (Fandi, Kadir, Nazri Nasir, Rafi Ali, Malek Awab)
Indian (V. Sundramoorthy!)
Foreigners (Australian Abbas Saad and Korean Jang Jung)
*wistfulsmile*
Oh, thanks for that info, Jan. I couldn’t find that lineup anywhere. I’ll add it into the story. Although I think we’re missing a couple of defenders. lol
you know, what i feel here is that yes, it has becoming more of a club than a traditional national team. but my reply here is to tell you that singaporeans, always blame the foreign talent scheme for hindering local players. This is typical of singapore, they dont have the mental attributes to improve themselves if an obstacle is given. Let me ask you a questions.
– Have the standard of singapore football improve until the arrival of the foreign talent scheme?
If given an obstacle like this, locals must infact improve their game and inturn improving the national standard of soccer. To me, the introduction of this talent scheme has only improve most of the national team and some of the s.league players, but not to the youngsters because they think they are hindered but they are not.
And leaving a report like this wont do much help, no offence, what we as a community could do is really give our suggestions to the FAS board, to make more sports schools, more sports academy for the youth, this can be done in miniature terms, but as the the words goes through the years, it would be a well supported government academy for sports and also, really, singapore fail completely in creating awareness of the current youth sports academy, fail in advertising singapore national matches, fail in promoting s.league, infact fail in promoting sports awareness as a whole… and i can point out but im too lazy to write out cause there is too many to say.
Hey Les. There are some typos in the years above.
“The starting XI of the celebrated 1997 Malaysia Cup squad coached by Choo Seng Quee had four Chinese, six Malay and two Indian players.”
and
“The 1988 squad is as follows:
Goalkeepers: Rezal Hassan (Malay), Bashir Khan (Malay)”
Aiyoh. Thanks for catching my mistakes, Basil.
So what do we do? Force all the boys to play football? The fact is, I used to have classmates (Malay and Chinese ones) who just don’t want to kick a ball simply because they don’t like it.
Then there are others who prefer other sports which are of different nature like the racket sports and sea sports. They too excel in those areas, but coverage given to them seems much lesser than football.
And then there are people like me, who like to play but simply can’t, because of lack of skill, fitness etc. So forcing it down simply don’t work.
The thing is, if we have a holistics physical education programme, things might just be better. The schools try to get more people fit, more people passing the basic fitness test, then slowly pushing them into sports of their interest to broaden the catchment scope of all sports. Right now, from what I see, the students do look less fit than it used to be. And mind you, this office newbie typing here is not very old, having just done his degree and starting out work.
The single section primary school system proposed could just be a starting point. More time, more space in school, so let’s get the children to do more workouts!