Monday, August 10, 2009
Noh Alam Shah - victim or villain?
In England there is a breed of fan that seeks to visit all the grounds in the top four divisions. They're called ground-hoppers and they aspire to join the 92 Club.
Other fans collect football programmes, badges, match tickets...just do some research on eBay to find the lengths people go to to keep their hobby going.
Singaporeans tend not to bother about such trivialities. There are no programmes, there are no badges and there's only a few stadium.
But there is still a club that certain people in the game aspire to join. But a club only available to a few lucky souls.
It's called the I Sent Noh Alam Shah Off Club (ISNASOC). Membership is easy. All a ref has to do is wave the fiery striker a red card and hey! They're in. It's that simple.
Admittedly Alam Shah (NAS) does make it easy for budding wannabes to join. His aggressive, in your face style sits uneasily in the polite, twee world of Singapore football where politeness is the norm and tackles best avoided.
Like any good club there are various degrees of membership.
First is the Basic Membership. Any red card, any time. This level is easily reached as it doesn't take long for the Tampines forward to start racing along the opponents back line, chasing lost causes and hoping to force a nervy defender into a mistake.
For the keen there is Advanced Membership. This requires a keen ref to send him off when he's playing against SAF. A case in point came in yesterday's meeting at Tampines Stadium when he went for a ball that had yet to be collected by SAF keeper Shahril Jantan.
Both players went to ground and the ref showed a straight red. But the ball was still in play, the keeper was alone in the penalty area. As a striker NAS was surely duty bound to put pressure on the keeper?
Then we have the Premium Membership. This is truly the peak of reffing in Singapore. To join, a whistler has to send off NAS in an incident involving SAF defender Daniel Bennett.
What this means is that refs are watching NAS's every move on the field and they queue up to officiate the only game that can bring them Premier Membership.
So what do members get for waving that red card? Respect. As they prowl the corridors of power, as they ride the 67 bus, people in hushed tones point and say 'he sent off Noh Alam Shah.' Teachers in rowdy classes around the island invoke club members names as they seek to impose discipline on spotty teenagers.
Of course where it leaves the finest striker of his generation is less clear. Perhaps the time is ripe for Noh Alam Shah to try his hand overseas where he will be just another face on the pitch and not a free pass to notoriety for enthusiastic officials.
Other fans collect football programmes, badges, match tickets...just do some research on eBay to find the lengths people go to to keep their hobby going.
Singaporeans tend not to bother about such trivialities. There are no programmes, there are no badges and there's only a few stadium.
But there is still a club that certain people in the game aspire to join. But a club only available to a few lucky souls.
It's called the I Sent Noh Alam Shah Off Club (ISNASOC). Membership is easy. All a ref has to do is wave the fiery striker a red card and hey! They're in. It's that simple.
Admittedly Alam Shah (NAS) does make it easy for budding wannabes to join. His aggressive, in your face style sits uneasily in the polite, twee world of Singapore football where politeness is the norm and tackles best avoided.
Like any good club there are various degrees of membership.
First is the Basic Membership. Any red card, any time. This level is easily reached as it doesn't take long for the Tampines forward to start racing along the opponents back line, chasing lost causes and hoping to force a nervy defender into a mistake.
For the keen there is Advanced Membership. This requires a keen ref to send him off when he's playing against SAF. A case in point came in yesterday's meeting at Tampines Stadium when he went for a ball that had yet to be collected by SAF keeper Shahril Jantan.
Both players went to ground and the ref showed a straight red. But the ball was still in play, the keeper was alone in the penalty area. As a striker NAS was surely duty bound to put pressure on the keeper?
Then we have the Premium Membership. This is truly the peak of reffing in Singapore. To join, a whistler has to send off NAS in an incident involving SAF defender Daniel Bennett.
What this means is that refs are watching NAS's every move on the field and they queue up to officiate the only game that can bring them Premier Membership.
So what do members get for waving that red card? Respect. As they prowl the corridors of power, as they ride the 67 bus, people in hushed tones point and say 'he sent off Noh Alam Shah.' Teachers in rowdy classes around the island invoke club members names as they seek to impose discipline on spotty teenagers.
Of course where it leaves the finest striker of his generation is less clear. Perhaps the time is ripe for Noh Alam Shah to try his hand overseas where he will be just another face on the pitch and not a free pass to notoriety for enthusiastic officials.
# posted by Me @ 4:19 PM 
