Sir Bobby Robson Day

I remember today is exactly one year after English football lost one of its most popular, highly respected & inspirational figure, Sir Bobby Robson. Times change but beautiful memories of Sir Bobby Robson will always remain in my mind. Salute to a true English gentleman of the football world.

I like the line in the song:

"Becoz he's wor Sir Bobby

And he took the National chair

MAKE ENGLAND FLY , SAW GAZZA CRY

AND ALMOST WON IT THERE."

(England were the better team on that 1990 night in Turin)

"Becoz he's wor Sir Bobby, He gives football a spark..."

Message about Sir Bobby from his former England team striker Gary Lineker

I'm no Geordie fan but feel very happy that Sir Bobby got to manage Newcastle Utd towards the late stage of his managerial career, the club that he supported as a boy. Though he was 70 years old then & grand-daddy manager, his passion to do well for the Magpies is still there. In fact, he gave the Toon Army fans their best performance for a few seasons since Kevin Keegan 1st reign as manager.

An interview with Sir Bobby Robson on his 75th Birthday

My good feeling for Sir Bobby Robson started with the England football team, mainly from the good performances in the Italia 90 World Cup. I still remember before Italia 90 & during pre-world cup final qualifying campaign, Sir Bobby Robson didn't give a lot of playing time for Paul Gascoigne. The media and football fans were all screaming for Gazza inclusion but very often, Sir Bobby brush it off and choosing to give minimal attention to English football most talented player. Gazza wasn't impressed at that time if I remember correctly. Maybe he was protecting Gazza or keeping his secret weapon. He launched this weapon on the biggest show in football, Italia 90. And as we all know, Gazza put up a fantastic show at Italia 90. I think Gazza is still very grateful for the influence that Sir Bobby has on his career during his prime All great managers have their strong ideas and Sir Bobby Robson wasn't afraid to change his very strong idea of a 4-4-2 formation to a new sweeper system midway through Italia 90. This was also one of the factor that enabled England to progress to the semi-finals.

Aside from Newcastle, Ipswich & England, Sir Bobby Robson is also very well-respected across European continent where he has managed teams such as Barcelona, PSV, Sporting Lisbon and Porto and lead them to football triumph. He also played an important role in the success of 1976 born Ronaldo, the Brazilian World Cup striker, who used to play for him @ Barcelona. Sir Bobby is the also the "shifu" /teacher of Jose Mourinho. The special one was understudy to Sir Bobby Robson at both Sporting & Barcelona.

Sir Bobby Robson is also a survivor of harsh reality of life and battled cancer many times in his life. He lost the battle last year but setup a cancer foundation organization to fund research efforts. More details can be found at : http://www.sirbobbyrobsonfoundation.org.uk/

I miss the football days of Sir Bobby Robson but will remember him for his immense contribution to English football. He is the manager of the finest England team that I've watch during my time. Thank you very much, Sir Bobby Robson. May you be well and happy wherever you're now. I believe your football passion will link you back to the game one day.

My 2010 World Cup Diary : Fulsal Sunday where we played like England but did an Argentina

It was a Sunday morning where Germany and Spain have advanced to the semi-finals of the 2010 FIFA World Cup the night before. While many S'pore fans may still be in dreamland, 16 Fulsal football teams have assembled in the early morning (8.30am) at the St Wilfred football pitch @ Whampoa for a sunday of fulsal competition. This tournament certainly complement very well with the on-going World Cup with many participants still entrenched with World Cup fever. This can be seen in their dressings, team kits or supporters. Majority are seen donning the colours of various World Cup teams. The most eye-catching team is the colour of orange and they're dressed in full Holland team kit. This team is the Whampoa CSC team and from the team sheet, it seems they have sent in two teams for this competition. One of the organizer is also dressed in Japan jersey with the words "Matsui" on the back, with obvious reference to World Cup Japanese midfielder Daisuke Matsui.

The 16 teams were divided into 4 groups of 4 teams with the round robin matches in the first round with the top 2 teams in each group proceeding to the knockout phase. Very world cup like format. My team is called Starlite something (i forget the exact name) and we're in Group B with Whampoa CSC Team A, Soldiers and Namly. We arrived ontime & register our team promptly before proceeding for a very important pre-match preparation. That is breakfast time. Need to fill our empty stomach with some fuel. Our first game is schedule at 9.15am, so we went to the nearest kopitiam. I had a plate of vegetarian beehoon while YQ & HY took a bowl of prawn noodle each and Arab & Christian ate big bao. Unique kind of tournament preparation from the Singaporean amateur football team. We're still missing two players who hasn't turn up and HY's friend presumably just woke up and another fellow was uncontactable. We guess he must be in World Cup dreamland.

When we return to the fulsal football pitch for our first game, we were informed that the Whampoa CSC Team A has not turn up and all the teams in our group will get a walkover with a 3-0 win over Whampoa CSC. What the fish, we're actually not happy to get a walkover because we really wanted to play all three games in our Group. So, Soldiers and Namly in our group play their game first instead of us. Soldiers is a red colour team and made up of Indian boys (look around 18 to 22 years old) while Namly is a black & white stripes team made up of chinese players (look in their 20s). Namly beat Soldiers 2-1 in the first game and from what we seen, it doesn't seem that they're strong team. They can run, pass a bit but nothing too scary to worry us. The disadvantage on our side is that many of us have not play together for many years and this is our 1st game together after such a long time. Our team captain HY has earlier informed us to wear white shirts but stressed that no England jersey allow. We all know what happen ^_^. So we're due to play Namly first and here's our team lineup:

1) Goalie: WT , Age: 35
2)Defender 1: Christian , Age: 38
3) Defender 2: Arab , Age: 35
4) Midfielder: YQ , Age : 35
5) Striker: HY's friend, Age: 30
Supersub cum manager: HY , Age: 35

The game starts and we played like England. No style, no slick passing but with lots of passion. We did well to contain the Namly players though I had to make a few saves from their forwards.Nothing too serious but there are some wild shot efforts that skyrocketed above my post. Upfront, we huff and puff like England and the match was evenly contested. Finally, it took a defensive error from our defender to let in the black & white stripes striker to finally beat this 35 year old goalie from Starlite. HY came in for Christian and we tried hard for the equaliser. YQ managed to snatch the ball from the Namly player in their area , cut back and was ready to let fly at the opposition goal. It was a powerful left footer that unfortunately skewed off its trajectory & hit our striker HY's friend who fell to teh ground. Credit to him , he didn't give up and jostle the ball on the ground but it was soon recovered by their goalie. That's was the closest attempt that we have in scoring. Not long after, the whistle blew and we have lost our first game 1-0 to Namly. We felt we deserved a draw. We play with lots of English passion and our gameplan is definitely England style. Pump and try, not much coordination or passing.

Game 2. The only way to advance to the next round is to beat Soldiers in our final group game. If its draw, we're out as they have scored one goal more than us. Here's the team lineup for this game:

1) Goalie: WT

2) Defender: HY

3) Defender: Christian

4) Midfielder: HY's friend

5) Striker : YQ

Sub: Arab

We started very well as Yongquan robbed the Soldier defender of the ball and shoot at the goal. Unfortunately, it struck the upright. But it certainly boost our confidence. Very soon, the soldier striker got free one on one with me but I manage to divert away the danger in getting to the ball before him but he's still stuck in his foot into me which causes the ball to spill. Many shouted for foul and the referee protected me by awarding a freekick. As the match progresses, the soldiers were attacking in numbers in our area and its inevitable that the first goal has to come. I can't really remember how it happen because I conceded another goal. It was 2-0 down but our veteran team still try very hard to get back into the game. HY tried with a left footed effort but it went wide of goal. The Soldier striker was not contented with a 2-0 lead and continue to launch attack on the 35 year old goalie from Sembawang. One of the shot went underneath my hands and I had to do a "Robert Green & German Keeper" stunt to pull back the goal from the goal-line. The refeere did not award a goal and I'm also not sure whether did it went over the line. It matter little as Soldiers went on to win the match with 2 further goals that ended our tournament. We did an Argentina in this game with a 4-0 loss.

We enjoyed both games as the pitch was good and we had a good workout on Sunday morning. Only blemish is the other team which did not turn out, which mean we play one game less. 3 games would have been the perfect workout for this veteran team. We are also happy to go home early at around 11am ++ as some of us are still recovering from the world cup last night. Football coming home again. Its been such a long time since I played with these old mates.