they were playing 3v4, barefooted, in a pitch wider than longer. 2 players caught my eye, for similar reasons. they were playing in the team of 3, i guess cause they felt they were better than the rest and could thus do with a man less, as long as they played with each other. their ball control was a mile better than the rest, rolling the ball between their feet at ease, always willing to do some stepovers before beating their man. backflicks, stepovers, body feints, everything thom can do, they can do better. and they are in primary school.
this led me to reflect on my football beginings. let's just say it wasn't my first love, rather basketball was. i got inspired to play basketball at the age of 6 by two things. 1. space jam and 2. a channel 8 tv serial. of all things, a cartoon full of whacky characters aka looooooooney tunes and a mandarin soap opera. nevermind. i remember using the laundry basket which was on top of a cabinet as a basketball hoop in primary 1, practicing my shooting and dunking in the comfort of my home. i've never touched a football till i was primary 3. in fact i think during recess time i hardly played any sports, i just ate my food and then sat around before going back to class.
i seem to vaguely recall my first match, which was also when i scored my first goal. in p3 we were sorted into classes based on our results and naturally i went to the top class. my class then was quite football-crazy so naturally i got influenced. if my memory serves me well, my first match and goal was during pe when i scored a tap-in after one of many goalmouth melees. you know primary school football, can't be too exciting. from then on i went strength to strength, dedicating every recess to the relentess chasing of a ball.
and this continued all the way through my nanhua days. in p4 it was a gigantic field, fighting with the p5s and 6s for space, with as many as 4 matches taking place in the same pitch alone. haha quite hilarious, upon recollection. in p5 we changed to playing on a narrow, odd shaped, brickpath-road, using slightly bigger than fist-sized rubber balls bought from the bookshop to play. in p6, we changed to a regular, but width-decreasing grass pitch, just beside the main, big but sandy one. this time we used real soccer balls. we even had a class ball, bought by our form teacher that we kept in a basket in class when we went back to class. we lost quite a few balls because the pitch was next to a slope and down the slope was drain that had a big hole that i'm sure i could squeeze through. no one thought to put something there until a few years back when i went back to visit.
i started as a winger, back in primary 3. when i got to sec 1 i realised that hey, it isn't really my position. oh and i played left wing all the time because everyone thought i was naturally left-footed. it was a big bluff! my brilliant left foot is a result of lots of practice in p4, with my refusal to use my stronger, natural right foot in favour of training my left. it started to bear fruit in p5 when it was usable and finally became the devastating weapon that it was in p6. oh, need i mention that the highlight of my left foot was missing the penalty that crashed us out of the penalty shootout against 6B. i was first-taker, i missed. alvan took next, missed too. joel seah didn't even get his turn.
ok in short, i think u shld watch this. my penalty miss is at 2.20mins. shoujian appears at 3.16. classic team photo appears at 3.20.
after that, when i came to sec sch. my left foot suffered from lack of use. to the extent i cannot shoot properly with it now. come to think of it, if i started playing football with the muds in the neighbourhood since the age of 6, spending 5.30 to 6.30 playing football instead of watching tv, my, how pro would my football skills be. think i shall end the post here. i don't really feel like writing anymore, nor do i know what to write next. sorry.