IN DHAKA FOR WORK

On my recent trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh for work, it was an eye opener as I now know why they come here to work, even as a pump attendant and it is considered a noble job. The country is poor and if you look at their buses and taxi, it will be deemed not road worthy here. Noticed pedal power prevails here as the people are strong in cycling their goods for one point to another. When I say goods, it like guni sacks on a special board connected to their bicyle.

At night after 8pm, there is nothing to do as the power is shutdown at public buildings meaning all shopping complexes are shut at 8pm. Was also advised not to step out of the hotel I was staying as it might be dangerous.

One more thing is that there is so much military presence in Dhaka and when I pass a posh hospital which houses VVIP patients, there was like 15-20 soldiers at the entrance.

On the plus sight though, I passed the National Stadium of Bangladesh for foootball, the Bangabandu Stadium and also passed by one fo Asia's oldest football club, the Mohammedan Sporting Club. No frills but I guess that where the football action in South Asia happens.

FLASHBACK TO REXY

Thought I'd share a moment with one of my favourite badminton players of all time, Rexy Mainaky. My favourite pair was him and Ricky Subagja.

Here is a pix of my Assumption Church badminton team at the PJ Churches badminton tournament where we finished second quite a while ago :( Sad.

Need a platform to show everyone and I thought this is a good starting point.

Nonetheless quite happy we got a photo taken as I loved his flamboyant and stylish play. Never seen anyone as quick as him and when I saw him play singles for SFX church, the accuracy and power and of course, speed was there. Don't bother that the opponent was a 'fish' but the crux of the matter is that I am witnessing something great from a few cm away. Even if I had half of his skills, I would be freaking happy.

BRING ON THE YOUTH

BAM's selection of young Arif Latif I think it's a good one for the future as he would be probably shoulder the burden of the nation's hope in the future. Rather than take older players to the Thomas Cup, it is good for us to take a risk (ala Walcott to the World Cup, see some similarities) and who knows, rewarded for it when its time for boys to become men.

Back in my playing days in Seremban, I have seen him play and also his elder brother Zakry who forms the 3rd doubles with Fairuzizuan, and I would say, those boys are good and skillful players, only lacking in power play, I suppose.

We just hope that he doesnt become a dud like Kuan Beng Hong who never recovered after getting whipped in the previous Thomas Cup. Talking about 3rd singles, we never had a solid reliable player in this position. No idea, even though they delivered the goods, like Kwan Yoke Meng and Wong Tat Meng. Looking at their singles career after team events, it never prospered and we hope the jinx on playing 3rd singles will never rub on this teenager.

Badminton other than squash, is our only sport which is world class and we need to maintain our high standards and I suppose everyone need to view the Thomas Cup seriously and not spoil our vision with illusion of grandeur at the Olympics, at least till the Thomas Cup is over.

CHELSEA OR MAN UTD?

The result of MU's loss in the EPL is a welcome relief to MU haters and neutrals. I for one was happy that they lost finally and more or less throw some life into the league. However, the title is still in MU's hands as all they need to do is win the remaining 2 matches to win the league as the goal difference is just too much for Chelsea to swallow. Also, if Chelsea stumble in their next match, it is as good as a gift to MU.

Well, I for one is looking forward as the race goes down the wire. Pardon me, but I would love to see Chelsea nick it over MU, maybe because a new league champion would be better and definitely shut most of MU's hardcore fans who I dislike. (well, some of them are my buddies so you all are excluded).

Hope to see Ballack pulling the strings and feeding Drogba and Les Sulk to greater glory. Of course, looking at MU objectively, their strength can never be underestimated with the likes of Ronaldo (ho-hum), Rooney and Hargreaves pulling their team from the brink as always.

Anyway, guys, lets enjoy the remainder of the season and hope by a miracle that Chelsea wins it... if they don't well, they did well enough to come close to United.

AT THE OLYMPIC TORCH RUN 2008

Me thinks I will be part of history today by being at the route of the Olympic torch run. I am just minutes away from this. Well, this will probably be my first and last and I would like to just witness this historic occasion for the country.

My only fear is the protesters but I guess, we, as a peaceful country won't experience this. Saw the list of torchbearers and it reads like a who's who list of the Malaysian sports scene. Anyway, as a former sports journo, kind of excited as you wonder how this ppl would look after many years away from the backpages of the sports pages - that's how I start my day, from the backpages and I think many sports aficionados do the same.

Will update my blog later once I witness this occasion. With so much of good and bad publicity surrounding it, one must be there to comment and feel the occasion.

Sad end to my Teams

Well, my Arsenal going to end up empty handed this season and its damn freaking sad seeing them fumble at the bloody Red Devils and also at the red colour of Mersey which I don't like. What to do, short on manpower in the squad - Van Persie is back but he is not the player he used to be, Flamini is out, Gilberto is back but it shows why Wenger does not field him regularly as he is crap. Adebayor is not making chances count while Bendtner is not up to mark. Just could go on and on but I guess 3rd spot is alright. Just hope the Kop don't catch up though.

Only hope is Chelsea to deny Satan but they are also fumbling. Looks like Satan's title again. Hope next season would be better and all the young kids would be more matured. Also, hope for better buys next season, does not matter whether English or Rest of the World. Anway, English players suck.. Just look at the national team.

Oh well, here's hoping to a good weekend to Arsenal, Everton, AC Milan and Real Madrid!

Ciao

FAILURE IN HOCKEY

Good one, courtesy of Rizal Hashim's blog, one of the top sports writers in Malaysia
Read on and be enlightened

FAIL, FAIL, FAIL…Athens Olympics 2004 World Cup 2006 Beijing Olympics 2008Egotistical MHF and Wrong Appointment of CoachesNSC and MHF - Please Help!Received an sms on Thursday 10 April 2008 from a hockey lover, he said Malaysia is down 4-3 to Italy and few minutes to play. I could not believe the news; I assume it is a typo error by the data entry personnel. But my friend checked again on the net and said is confirmed. Lucky Malaysia equalized in the 70th minutes to obtained one point from Italy, a pizza diet nation.Could not believe it because of the following reasons:1 Italy is ranked 37th and Malaysia 14th 2 Spent millions on the Malaysian team preparation till MHF is in debts of 1.71 millions.3 Big Funding from NSC on the Coaches and Team.4 Malaysian team played in an elite tournament i.e. Champions Trophy (Dec 2007) and also went to Australia (Feb/March 2008) for exposure. 5 Two years of preparation i.e. full time training (day in day out).6 Lofty level of benefits – allowances, accommodation and food is free.7 Foreign assistance – Goalkeeper Coach from Pakistan and Advisor from Germany.8 Scientific training – Support from ISN on fitness and nutrition9 Physiotherapy, Medical Officer and Masseurs for the team.Based on the above, what have the other participating teams in the Qualifiers get and done prior to the Qualifiers? But still they managed to perform to certain level and got reasonable results in the tournament. What excuses do the Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) and National Sports Council (NSC) have in their pockets or hats?Played 6 games – 3 win, 2 draws and 1 lost. Scored 16 and let in 14 goals.Does the above points justifies their achievement in their Olympic qualifiers in Japan. Even the blind and deaf but hockey lover would say that the team achieved is an illogical achievement based on the support and benefits.The new MHF office bearers are almost 1 and ½ years old in the office. Most decision and policy made by certain quarters are “FLIP-FLOP”. Nothing is done based on merit and every decision is made on personal interest. The game of hockey is an ancillary to the arrogants. The Federation exists because of the game but due to ego of certain quarters think that they are bigger than the sport. They show and demonstrate their powers as though the game of hockey belongs to them.They control most of the affiliates by giving a chance for the affiliates office bearers (President and Secretary) on a rotation basis to be the Team Manager of the Malaysian Hockey Team. This is done because of their future votes in the BGM shall permit these bigheaded office bearers to sustain power in the office.The members or appointees selected by MHF for various positions must have the following criteria’s:1 Must be a bootlicker and must be a friend of the arrogants2 Every decision is maneuver before a meeting – Decision made before discussing in the meeting. Is like kangaroo courts!3 Listen to the instruction and be a puppet master to the arrogants4 Don’t worry whether you have the qualification to take up the post. 5 Enjoy the get together after every meeting – booze and makan sponsored by the arrogants and then claim from MHF.6 Play the same tune or else you would be out of the system.The Qualifiers in Japan, we heard that about 31 people went to the games to make sure the team performed at its very best – at least a seat in the Finals.There were many officials from the Coaching team, Medical Team, Management team, Trainer, Cooks, Physiotherapist, Masseur, Video-man, NSC officials and others. Only missing link is Weatherman and Cheer Group – no allocation but NSC could consider including them in the next qualifiers, but make sure the cheerleaders are girls to stimulate the coaches and the team. No wonder the Organizers said the hotel rooms are fully booked and Gifu Government also mentioned that the turnover of tourist rise by 10% for the month of April…The coaching department comprise of 4 members - 1 head coach, 2 assistant coaches and 1 Goalkeeper coach. MHF appointed a new assistant coach who hardly only played hockey at University or State level. No coaching background, surprisingly how did NSC allow to slip in this guy into the coaching setup and fully paid for his trip? The other coaches are appointed based on friendship and not on merit. To be a coach in the National setup you need be a friend of the arrogants and follow what they say. Don’t worry whether you are qualified or not and what was you past coaching credentials, all this is not an important yardstick for the evaluation of the appointment. The Coaching Chairman is just a dummy master who just chairs the meeting and endorsed the arrogants decision. The decisions are all made before the meeting. Poor old man! There were rumors that the current coaches have filed in for their salary increment to NSC. The revised salary asked around $15k to $21k. Don’t worry it is possible due to friendship policy between MHF and NSC. Can be done even failed to qualify…There are two Mangers i.e. Manager and Stand-in Manager registered on the bench. But why MHF need to register two managers but only one manager was in action. What to do, just follow instruction. Everything is done based on what the arrogants feel is right. Whether the team needs one or two Manager is secondary “Mahu tolong kawan ma..”Let’s go back to the Qualifiers result.For sure they will be out due to Germany supremacy! But the question is how did the Malaysian team bowed out of the tournament. Not even securing a final seat, which was the MHF and NSC target.For sure all the Media members under the friendship policy was also advised to play a low key and do a marketing job for the arrogants to keep on their posts. Tak payah risau, ada booze and makan waiting… Any MHF media jobs or tender can be considered.After the tournament all the media members started their marketing gimmick to protect their friends by saying keep the same squad and coaches for long-term preparation. They perform accept for the third goal Japan scored? This goal is used as a deflection of the actual fact of the failure. The arrogants and friendship media members need a reason to plot their failure. They forget about the overall summary results! The MHF and NSC could do a through and accurate investigation on the whole set-up and see where it went wrong. But the media boys started to protect their friendship policy.Failures are a familiar story for Malaysia hockey and are common for not making the cut! But the MHF and NSC would still retain the same coaching setup because of the existence of friendship policy between the arrogants of MHF and an official of NSC!NSC needs to intervene because the funding is people’s money – taxpayers. The public needs to know what happened? Please drop this friendship policy in any decision-making, do the right thing based on the merits. NSC is holding the key to the door of the Malaysian hockey future direction.If one has done crime, please arrest and punished, don’t allow the criminal to be free and continue to do more crime. NSC and MHF please arrest these criminals and punished! Tolong tangkap and masukkan dalam ISA!If the same arrogants people are running the game of hockey, don’t have any hope for the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 Olympics. By then our ranking would be 30 to 40 in the World hockey.But MHF has also created a history that the team has missed two Olympics in a row. Syabas and the officials of the Malaysia books of record, please dot down this fact into the records book. Don’t worry the third one is coming soon if this arrogants and the coaching setup remains.It is very disturbing the way the coaches have asked the NSC to review their salaries and allowing a University coach to be in Japan is very annoying. Rather than paying these arrogants, please take this budget and appoint a foreign coach. We had Terry Walsh, Paul Lissek and others! Is Paul Lissek still around or gone back to Germany for good.We need a surgeon i.e. foreign coach to curb the cancer that is Stage 2, need to operate and cut the affected area, which are the bigheaded officials and coaches. Please also do an electric shock wave on the dummy master to wake him up to appoint good coaches! NSC and MHF should do chemotherapy on the cancer! Please get the independent parties to perform this exercise. If not the same patient is treating its own recovery method, which most of the Association does after a failure. Please address this issue to save the standard of Malaysian hockey and the game we loved the most…The Implication for not Qualifying:1 Ranking now 14th to 20th (postulation) after Beijing Olympics. Drop too many points to sustain number 14th. Missed 2 Olympics and 1 World Cup.2 The Sports Ministry may consider to revised from Category A to Category B sports.3 No sufficient / allocation of funds for future exposure and oversea stint.4 Future generation hockey players’ benefits jeopardize.5 Top ranking teams (1 to 10) may not invite Malaysia to participate due to the poor standard of international hockey.6 The interest of future generation to be involved in hockey looks very dim.Oops! Forgot that the Alongs and Debt Collectors are looking for the treasurer of MHF to settle the debts. Especially, the hotels and a restaurant owner where these arrogants have abused and misuse their powers during tournaments. More so these are public money that are sponsored by NSC and also Tenaga Nasional Bhd. These arrogants have not even contributed any single penny but they behave as though the sponsored money is belongs to them and not the game.Within 13 months the arrogants have raped the Federation and is in debts now. Their operating account is also freezed like the Qualifiers result.Now they are searching for victims to bailout these debts. NSC please don’t bail them anymore…To End. The hockey fraternity is in dilemma and heartbreaking for the state of hockey in this country.The way forward…Appoint several independent members (Former Coaches, Players and Administrators) with few NSC and MHF genuine officials who have an importance on this matter. The Chairperson shall be a reputable representative from NSC who has no any direct or indirect interest with regards to the game of hockey at any rank.With this, an independent post-mortem with taking into account the “Game of Hockey” is a bigger agenda than these arrogants in the MHF setup.If such remedial action is not taken by NSC and MHF, then we better forget in investing our support and time to the game of hockey that we loved most because of the:“Egotistical MHF And Wrong Appointment of Coaches”Thank you and all the best to NSC and MHF…

My debut today

Made my debut on this blog today and felt good writing.. been a while since I wrote something about sports, which I used to do when I was with The Sun before we were all retrenched. Sports was and still is a passion. Sadly, I can't make as much from it.. wish I could

Had a blog at 360 yahoo but I guess this blog has a better feel to it. Not really expecting ppl to read my blog but hey, if anyone do.. would be great, especially looking at the comment section.

I don't know what to write but I guess inspiration will come soon.

For now, I lay in wait for the next big thing which crossess my medula oblongata.

Malaysian Hockey, why bother?

The Malaysian hockey team is really bad and it is only going to get worse by the day? Why?

Just look at the composition of the team and you wonder where are the Seranis, the Chinese, Indians and the Singhs? The minorities are so miserly represented in the team. What happened? Only MHF can answer, me thinks. Look at the past and you will notice multi racial teams always do the trick for the country.

Anyway, ignoring the race card, how on the earth can we bloody draw with Italy? I mean Italy, Yes, a country known more for their footie, food, historical sites and women. I am surprised the local media did not ram them the glory for their pathetic draw. Blaming Japan at the last min won't do. In my words, nasi sudah menjadi kue tiau!

Let's look at the league. MHL is a league where even its free, you won't see ppl coming in droves to support the team. Anyway, only BSN, Tenaga, Sapura and E and Y are the only teams playing real hockey - likened to a one eyed person in a blind man's world. And we wonder why there are not much sponsors coming around. I don't blame the big teams, it is their right to hire anyone they like as long it follows the tournament regulations.

In MJHL, its always BJSS. What is so great seeing their players win when they are supposed to win? To the uninitiated, BJSS is a sports school meant to place sports above academic excellence. BJSS should not be playing there but instead sent elsewhere for training. Let the newbies from other team perform, at least the pool would be bigger.

But then knowing us, we Malaysians when sent overseas for training, will miss all the comforts of home like teh tarik, nasi lemak, roti kosong...(except for a few athletes who are doing well overseas)