World Cup 2010: Singapore's MDA has duty to fulfil responsibility to Singapore's public

Hi Friends,

The letter below was published in the Straits Times Forum page (22.1.10) ( albeit in a truncated version).

The letter:

Dear Editor,

The Media Development Authority (MDA) should take decisive action now to ensure that key World Cup 2010 matches, including Opening match, semi-finals and final matches are telecast over the free-to-air channels, regardless of what cable content providers do for the following reasons:

1. MDA collects license fee of $110 per year from each household with a television set and the paying public expects MDA to telecast content which the public deems as basic infotainment. With increased affluence, these key World Cup matches would easily qualify as a must-have item in any given menu just as key events in the recent Olympic games were.

2. There are still many households in Singapore who cannot afford cable subscriptions. Hence MDA should never abrogate its basic responsibilities to cable content providers such as Starhub or Singtel. Of course, if these cable providers had bought the rights (which they had not) and wanted to telecast all the matches to cater to die-hard football fans, they are just meeting their commercial obligations.

It is time MDA or other relevant government bodies step in to do the right thing.

The public expects no less!

Dr Huang Shoou Chyuan

Dollah Kassim and other heroes from my childhood.

Hi Friends,

Close your eyes.

Imagine Dollah Kassim standing before a ball in the National Stadium- about to take a free kick.

If you cannot picture him with his classic “arms akimbo” pose, I can bet that you were not at any Malaysia Cup match of the 1970’s.

Boys of my vintage derived immense pleasure from thronging to the Kallang arena weekend after weekend to watch the likes of Dollah Kassim whip the minnows of Malaysia in the only sports event that mattered- the Malaysia Cup.

Perlis, Johor,Malacca,Negri Sembilan were cannon fodder for Dollah and the gang. Only Selangor and occasionally Penang were any match for us.

If my memory does not fail me, the gang included:
Eric Paine (goalie); Hasli Ibrahim and Syed Mutalib (both capable of breaking legs) ; Seak Poh Leong (Captain); Robert Sim;Samad Allapitchay; “Camel” Rajagopal; Quah Kim Song; Quah Kim Lye;"baby-faced" Mohamed Noh and of course Dollah Kassim. (addendum 6.10.09 5.40am- "Terry" Pathmanathan was inevitably left out. Apologies)

Their Malaysian nemesis were giants like "spiderman" Arumugam; Santokh Singh;"Towkay" Soh Chin Aun;Mokhtar Dahari;Shukoh Salleh and Isa Bakar.

Filling the Kallang cauldron with 50000 or more screaming adulating fans was a “given” every weekend. The coach was of course the wheelchair-bound Choo Seng Quee who would start each training session with the national anthem.

Dollah, thanks for the memories.

Our prayers are with you and we hope that you can overcome the biggest “match” yet. You have beaten the odds before and you can do it again.

Your faithful fan,

Dr Huang Shoou Chyuan


Singapore football legend Dollah still in critical condition (Today 5th Oct 2009)

SINGAPORE: Singapore's football legend Dollah Kassim is still unconscious and in a critical condition after suffering a heart attack at Sunday's Sultan of Selangor Cup veterans game. Paramedics had to resuscitate Dollah before he arrived in hospital and the 60-year-old underwent an emergency angioplasty procedure to unclog blocked arteries on Sunday night. Dollah is warded in the Intensive Care Unit at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He is hooked up to machines and his breathing assisted by breathing machines. His family has requested the doctors not to reveal too much at this point in time.

Leeds United: The last Fan in Singapore, I must be! Hic!

BBC Sports 29.4.07
Leeds 1-1 Ipswich
Ipswich's late equaliser has virtually relegated Leeds, who trail Hull by three points and have a vastly inferior goal difference with one game to play.
It is still mathematically possible for Leeds to stay up, but they would need to win their last game by at least eight goals, and for Hull to lose. read on... but be warned it is sad

My comments

Hi World,

“The last Leeds fan in Singapore, I must be” Master Yoda would have said if he were me!
(Yoda is a member of the Jedi Council)

Anyway, if anyone were me ( or is it if anyone was I?), one would not have been a Leeds United fan!

Only a masochistic loser and supporter of lost causes and a sentimental fool would ever contemplate supporting any club as woeful as Leeds.

How on earth did I end up being a fan of the Whites ( whose strip incidentally is a copy of Real Madrid’s). I think Leeds even give Singapore’s MIW’s a bad name! How terrible is that?

Many moons and just as many hairs ago, in the 70’s, Leeds United was a great team under the inimitable Don Revie , and only a few years ago, I could have rattled off the names of the 70’s team.

I think that great team consisted of David Harvey, Norman Hunter, Johnny Giles, Eddie Gray ( and another Gray), Jackie Charlton, Allan Clarke,Billy Bremner. Fill in the blanks for me if you can, some other die-hards- who must be just as drunk and drowning in rivers of sorrow.

And to think that only a few seasons ago, David O’leary brought the young team consisting of Smith/Viduka/ Kewell/Woodgate/Robinson/Kelly/Harte/Dacourt/Redebe/Bowyer et al all the way to the semi-finals of the European Champions’ League.

Now after selling off all that can be sold, and being relegated from the English Premier League into the second-tier Coca-Cola Championship League ( and who are they kidding? The Championship league is the Second Division and changing the name and euphemism is just trickery and self-delusionary), Leeds United will now be relegated into the third-tier First Division (the old Third Division)!

It is so shameful! So pathetic! When my friends talk about Man U or Chelsea or even Liverpool getting into or missing out on automatic Champion’s League place etc, in the back of my mind, I can only be green and absolutely filled with jealousy and pretending that that is so unimportant and inconsequential!

I, the born-loser, promise, from henceforth, that I will not surf the net on every single Saturday night (GMT) or Friday or Sunday or even weekdays to check the “live score” page of the BBC sports page for the minute-by-minute commentary of Leeds’ matches , nor check official and unofficial Leeds United websites about banal and boring news about who has been injured or is recovering from injury and which second-rate player Leeds has managed to loan from some EPL team.

Remember Rauol Bravo? who was bought ( or on loan) from Real Madrid and played worse than any S-League player but when he returned to the La Liga, suddenly found his playing form again?

Anyone got a Prozac? I want to down it with Vodka!

Boo Hoo Hoo

Dr.Huang Shoou Chyuan