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Thursday, December 23, 2010

 

A Pet Whine

Malaysia and 8.45 pm kick offs!

What the heck? Apart from the fact it's way past my bed time I'm sure many locals also find this time to be a great inconvenience, especially the relative inaccessability of most of the stadiums in the country.

The easiest grounds to get to as far as I'm aware are the City Stadium in Penang and Larkin Stadium in Johor. The latter is a short walk from the Larkin bus station meaning it is possible to stay in Singapore and pop over the border to take in a game.

Unfortunately, for me at least, both teams were relegated at the end of the 2010 Malaysian Super League and, unfortunately for me and them, they look like they're staying relegated.

Melaka's stadium looks fairly accessible, at least according to old map, but they aren't even in the second tier Premier League having, as we used to say in England, fallen so low they dropped of coupon!

I have actually visited the Kelantan stadium in Kota Bahru, many many years ago when I was still living in Thailand and had to do frequent visa runs to keep myself semi legit. It's walkable from the centre of town.

The Pahang stadium looks to be in the heart of Kuantan should I ever make it there one day.

In fact one year I recall being in Penang and buying the local paper planning to do visa runs based around football matches! I was looking at train trips from Bangkok south every month or so and stopping off in places like Kangar, Alor Star as well as Kota Bahru and Penang.

Never came to 'owt mind. Half the time I just didn't bother crossing the damned border...

Comments:
When I was kid, Selangor used to play at Stadium Merdeka, which was located right in the middle of the city. Needless to say, it was always a full house when Selangor plays. In the mid 90's Selangor moved to Shah Alam Stadium (which technically was the capital of Selangor) but the stadium was nowhere near any public transport! Where the stadium is, coupled with the declining standards of Malaysian league, getting up to 5,000 fans on league games would sometimes be impossible (except, of course, when Bambang and Elie were playing in that successful year - when the stadium was always full to the rafters)
 
Hi,I'm a Malaysian
8.45 p.m. is the best kick off time
for me and most of my friends
8.00 p.m. kick off is too early for us..LOL
 
it would be great if a team could use the merdeka stadium again!

ron - can i ask...do you have private transport or do you rely on public transport?

ordinarily i would use taxis but i have a visceral loathing of the average kl taxi driver!
 
yes i have private transport
most of Malaysian football fans do
so transportation isn't a problem for us

kl taxi drivers are suck, especially at night
 
I'd prefer 20:45 to the 17:30 or 18:00 that is usual for international matches in Thailand.
 
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