There has been a lot of excitement lately about the fact that we’re returning to the Malaysia Cup.
It’s almost like saying the Beatles are alive and well, and will be touring the world once again.
But will it ever be the same again for us?
No.
Firstly, lest we all get ahead of ourselves, let’s get the caveat out of the way first – the team will comprise national players below the age of 23, five players above the age of 23 and will be complemented by the quota of foreign players allowed in accordance with the competition rules.
I just want to make a few points:
We should never have left the Malaysia Cup in 1994.
That was the beginning of the long decline of football as we knew it in Singapore, culminating in today’s sad state whereby none of us can even name two players in our national squad.
Singapore football has hit low after low since the good times ended in 1994.
Those of us above 30 would probably be old enough to remember the heyday where we routinely packed the 60,000+ capacity National Stadium to watch our boys take on the Malaysian teams.
I was fortunate enough to have my dad take me to a number of the games, and those are memories which I have not forgotten after all these years.
I’m sure those who’ve been there before would perfectly understand what I’m talking about.
I don’t think we’ve experienced anything close to that in Singapore ever since 1994.
It was our Nou Camp, our San Siro, our Anfield.
It was a special experience that was brought about by a confluence of factors – the players, the fans, the Malaysian competition, and the era which we were in.
And it is this “era” factor which makes me think that we will never be able to achieve the same magic once again.
Pre-1994 was the era which had no internet nor cable TV.
Yes, it’s hard to believe, but none of us surfed the internet back then, and we couldn’t even get Premiership games on telly!
I think if we were lucky we would have gotten the occasional FA Cup or League Cup Final, and that was about it.
Or if you were lucky enough to have the CNN channel back then, then you would eagerly tune in to CNN World Sport every evening just to catch a glimpse of European football from the highlights.
Everything else, we had to read from the papers and imagine what English football was like.
Those were the good ol’ days.
There really wasn’t much else to keep us entertained back then, compared to now.
And as such, it was easy to focus all our attention on our Lions.
In today’s age of the Barclays Premiership, La Liga, Serie A, Champions League, Formula 1, Moto GP, ESPN, NBA, MLB, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and all that…I honestly don’t think we’d be as focussed on the Malaysia Cup as we were back in the early-90′s.
It was just a much simpler era back then, with much fewer distractions.
And as such, things will never be the same again.
It may come close, but even that, I think, is unlikely.
