By Les Tan/Red Sports
Football may be a popular sport but for some schools like St Joseph’s Institution and Raffles Institution, that is not a good enough reason to have a football Co-Curricular Activity (CCA) at C and B Division level.
In the case of Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), they may be a top sports school with 10 championship titles in 2008 but despite having a football team, they have not come close to winning a C or B Division national championship in recent decades.
Are premier schools afraid of losing to neighbourhood schools? Perhaps the scoreline “Hong Kah 6 RI 0” or “Seng Kang 5 SJI 0” added to a constant losing streak might be a humiliation too hard to swallow and that could be the unspoken reason why they have not fielded a team.
As any football coach will attest, it is maddeningly difficult to achieve success on the field. The fewer the players, the higher the chances of success.
Why?
In basketball, three good players can bring you at least into the national championships. In individual sports like tennis and table tennis, three brilliant players will give you a good shot at a top-four team finish at national level.
With a football team, having just three brilliant players doesn’t get you anywhere.
For SJI, for the year 2007, their highest achievement in team sports was a third-place finish in the C Division Rugby Championship. For RI, their highest achievement in team sports for 2008 was a first-place finish in softball in the C Division Softball Championship. (Ed’s note: we previously made an error in referring to the basketball team’s third-place finish in the C Division Basketball Championship as the highest team sport achievement. Sorry for the error.)
For ACS(I), their highest achievement in team sports is as national champions in the C and B Division Rugby Championships.
However, in rugby, only about 20 schools take part and there are no zonal championships. All teams go directly into a national championship and the eventual winner, ACS(I) played seven games to win their championship.
Basketball, by contrast, sees 108 schools taking part in this year’s B Division Championship and last year’s eventual champions, Catholic High, played 18 games to earn their crown.
In the case of neighbourhood schools, the sport of football, in the eyes of some educators on the ground at least, attracts students who will pull down the overall scholastic achievements of the school. A teacher once related how his PE head of department actually sawed off the goal posts and shut down the football team.
Football is ironically the only sport in Singapore that has a professional league but there is little buzz on the ground among students about making a career in the S.League.
The recent trials by FAS for the Under-8, Under-10 and Under-12 notably attracted few ethnic Chinese players. Given that 74% of the population is ethnic Chinese, genuine talents are definitely lost to the national selectors.
Some of the best football played in Singapore can be found at the A Division level but few of those players go on to the national age-group set up because of national service and further studies after that. © Red Sports
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Yes Les….you are right. Dxmn you!!! RI has no football team, despite a strong love for football from many boys. 15 years ago, we did not have a basketball team either.
Unofficial reason given. Its too resource intensive (too many boys required), too competitive to ensure perennial national placings, and even if you have these talented athletes…you could use them to better national medal returns…by farming them out to rugby or track or whatever.
This situation burned with me intensely..and I spent 10 years of my life trying to prove this to be wrong. When I was in school, we were VERY proud that if you could find a group of boys who wanted to play a sport, and dedicated themselves to this sport, and prepared well enough to give a good account of themselves, and not let the school down….we would send the team.
Although I like to think that I proved that RI could be a nationally ranked, basketball powerhouse…. English school and 100 opposing teams per year..notwithstanding …..and that we could groom 10 – 15 well prepared and motivated basketballers per batch without DSA or special resources…..I still could not dis-prove that they could have taken these 10 – 12 boys from basketball and applied them to other sports with better national medal returns.
@Kelvin: Thanks for sharing your experience.
Having a sports team only when you have a chance to win a medal at school level is a disservice to the country.
Hi there, I’m a current SJI boy, and yes, although soccer is widely popular in my school and students play soccer almost everyday during recess, most Josephians do know the reason why we don’t have a CCA set aside for soccer. I certainly do not believe that losing to neighbourhood schools is the reason but instead the schedule of a soccer season. Rubgy is opted over soccer mainly because the rugby season is played over a much shorter period compared to soccer, and it ends usually before May. The soccer season is much longer than the Rugby one, and if we were to have soccer as a CCA, the secondary 4 B Div boys will not have much time to prepare for their O level exams. I believe that’s the main reason why and hope this clears the cloud over why SJI doesn’t have Soccer as a CCA.
Does anyone have the A Division football fixtures please? We are looking for it!
There are 3 AC teams in A Div this year.
ACJC, ACS Independent and ACS International.
hmmm… RI did have a soccer team not too long ago. In fact, it was started by the soccer teacher i/c from VS previously, Mr Justin Pierre Ratnam (sic), I think. We will need someone from RI to verify the facts from the yearbooks around 1997-2000. If i remember correctly, they fared well at the zone level, but not at nationals.
Football B & C division is tough to excel at – its true that there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between good footballers and academic inclination. For premier schools like RI and SJI – academia reigns supreme in their respective sphere (pardon the bowwowed lyrics from the Rafflesian Song), these sons of SIngapore have been “selected” to the forefront of academic valiance. It is impossible to promptly respond to their Mater’s call when fottball is not taken seriously – even rugby gets more respect than that!
Indeed losing to neighbourhood schools and getting into fights/méleés with ah bongs on the pitch cannot be of any good to the reputation of the respective schools such as RI or SJI or even ACS(I). The stigmna isn’t great publicity.
JUst go back to the darwing board – attract football enthuiasts and this has to start at the primary levels.
ore et labora / auspicium melioris aevi
I think you mention a valid point, Raybo. Rugby gets more respect than football in some circles.
ya they play a div but supposely they going close down next year because.. ya i say before
if it’s counted…. RI got 1st for C div sailing, B and C div swimming, C div tennis lol.
But those aren’t team sports. They are individual sports. I know there is a team component but the athletes go out individually.
acsi is supposely closing down their A Div football team next year i heard. Something abt sch not support their team. not only ri sji, looks like acsi also, at least in a div
I didn’t realise ACS(I) even had a football team. I thought the only ACS team in the A Division was ACJC. Did ACS(I) play in the A Division or was it just a casual kickabout team?
ACS(Independent) got a national hockey silver in 2007 and 4th in 2008, but in A division, where the competition is much less. By comparison, the B and C divisions have not come close to the medal positions in years. It’s the same story as football, where the top boys schools at secondary level simply can’t dominate the way they do other sports.
hey would i request that you people write to peirce sec for a football cca?i see alot of talents when i was playing with them a week ago..so yea we could work together to persuade the principal to re-start the soccer cca which was closed several years ago..PLEASE AND TKS!
Correction: In basketball, you play at least 18 games to get to the National Finals.
There are a few good observations in the article. In general, SGP Sports is very result-oriented, many times to the detriment of actual sporting development. We give up long term progress for short term (or instant) results.
Why do we see more participation in basketball vs soccer (in result-oriented SGP)? it’s a 5-men vs 11-men game. To win a soccer tournament, you need to invest a lot more athletes compared to basketball. The “heacount-saved” for sending a basketball team could be very well ploughed into another sport with potential for more results.
Thanks for the correction, YC. My counting a bit koyak.
Hey Les,
Good Point – like to highlight another established school that you did not mention : St Andrews. They are more known for their rugby like ACS, but in recent times (3 years ago) have restarted their soccer program. Some might know that in the early 90s, St Andrews even reached the National C division School finals. On one of those teams in the 90s was a rising star named Indra Shadan – the same current national striker. Hey – wait a minute : Was’nt Indra from St Pats? Well he transfered over in Sec 2. Mainly becase the school admin at St Andrews decided during that time that Soccer was not helping Rugby (a mis skewed view in my opinon) as many soccer players were doing double duty – rugby and soccer. They felt that by closing the soccer down, the rugby program would improve. Like you said Les, one reason might also be they felt that Soccer could not ‘win them any medals’.
So hence Indra left the school to persue his football dreams. Many on that team were playing club football in the youth academies, but slowly stopped and played rugby for school and football for fun.
The soccer prog was only restarted in late 2006 when an aluminus of the school and ex national futsal player Mhd Osman returned as a physical education teacher. The team has had some good results reaching zone finals in 2007. The teacher is both coach and manager, and is mindful which sports reign supreme in the school – Rugby and hockey.
So I think the reason why the established schools dun have a football team is simply focusing their core strengths. The feel why compromise what is popular with old boys (for funding) and is able to get national recognition. Lets face it – its easier to get national top 4 in rugby than it is to get any national ranking in football. And national ranking in sports affects the overal ranking of the school.
Thanks for enlightening me, PK. Who knows how many more footballers dropped out cos they didn’t switch schools to play football.