Football

Neglected - by <3 [ { - a u b r e y - } ]

So football season has begun in earnest, because the half of every local paper is comprised of local news, while the other half is EPL news. I can't say I was never a football fan. I was, until I attended this school that was sucky at football but good at rugby union.

I suddenly remembered what a big fan I used to be when Naomi asked me how come I didn't watch soccer like the rest of the country. I recalled the Tot­ten­ham Hotspur’s 1980/81 team anthem with glee, then scared myself a lit­tle bit because I still remem­bered a lot of the lyrics:

Ossie's going to Wem­b­ley
His knees have gone all trem­b­ley
Come on you Spurs
Come on you Spurs

Come on you, Spurs are on their way to Wem­b­ley
Tottenham’s gonna do it again
They can’t stop ‘em, they boys from Tot­ten­ham
The boys from White Hart Lane

Spurs are on their way to Wem­b­ley
The kings are claim­ing the throne
Every­body will be singing
When the Spurs go march­ing on

We are the boys of Keithie’s army
And we’re march­ing off to war
We’re send­ing our sol­diers to Wem­b­ley
Under Gen­eral Burkinshaw

Cho­rus

In our ranks there’s Ossie Ardiles
He’s had a dream for a year or two
That one day he’s gonna play at Wem­b­ley
Now his dream is com­ing true

Ossie, we gonna be behind you
Alto­gether man for man
We know you’re gonna play a blinder
To ween thee cop for Tot­ting­ham
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That funny last bit, "to ween dee cop for Tottingham", was sung by Osvaldo "Ossie" Ardiles, one half Tottenham's star duo, together with his fellow Argentinian Ricardo “Ricky” Villa. And they wreaked havoc in the first divi­sion in ’81 and 82, when they also won the F.A. Cup back to back. Which was a very big thing in those days. Foot­ball fans in Sin­ga­pore in those days lived for two things — the F.A. Cup and the Malaysia Cup.

Ah, the pre–EPL days, when football was a sport and not quite yet a business. Back in the day, I stayed up late with my older sister to watch the F.A. Cup finals 'live' via satellite, which was a very big thing because 'live' feeds were a bit dodgy and prone to technical mishaps - the 1987 Rugby World Cup final in Auckland had its sound feed mangled, leaving the RTM's lone Malay language sports commentator to ad lib.

1981 was a great year for Spurs, they won the <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.A._Cup” onclick=“javascript:_gaq.push([’_trackEvent’,‘outbound-article’,‘http://en.wikipedia.org’]);urchinTracker(“/outbound/en.wikipedia.org’);”>F.A. Cup for the 6th time (and in 1982 for the 7th), but the real­ity of sport­ing busi­nesses began to sink in, when in 1983, it became the first foot­ball club to float shares on the Lon­don Stock Exchange.

And so, I lost inter­est in foot­ball, start­ing call­ing it soc­cer, and no mat­ter what any­one tells you, it’s not because I can’t play the game. I’ll have you know I’ve been sent off the soc­cer pitch a few times for ‘bois­ter­ous play’.

But go, foot­ball sea­son! I’ll be watch­ing. Sorta. Until <a href=“http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/” onclick=“javascript:_gaq.push([’_trackEvent’,‘outbound-article’,‘http://www.rugbyworldcup.com’]);urchinTracker(“/outbound/www.rugbyworldcup.com’);”>this starts in a cou­ple of weeks.