By
Terence Netto: Sixty-five nations, Malaysia included, declined to send their athletes to the 1980 Moscow Olympics as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Eighty other International Olympic Committee members chose to send their athletes. Whether the latter group made their decision to participate for sound or sorry reasons, history is likely to vindicate the premise that the Olympic Games should not be suborned by politics.
Malaysia’s decision to boycott the Moscow Olympics proved costly to our football team which qualified for the Olympics for only the second time in their history. To qualify the team once again beat South Korea in an Asian qualifying round, like their predecessors did, in order to make it to the 1972 Munich Games.
The national hockey team, too, qualified for Moscow, by dint of winning the bronze medal at the 1978 Bangkok Asian Games where they beat Japan in the match for third and fourth placings. The Malaysian hockey team had been, since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, qualifying for the quadrennial summit of sport regularly, gaining a hitherto unattained eighth placing at the 1972 Munich Games and replicating that attainment at the following one in Montreal.
Pre-Independence Malaya (precursor of Malaysia) made its Olympic debut in hockey at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics where we finished 9th out of 12 teams. Centre half Mike Shepherdson was named to a World XI at the end of that debut which signalled that the small nation had in its casket a collection of hockey jewels. Though the country skipped the 1960 Rome Olympics due to financial reasons, a bronze medal at the 1962 Jakarta Asian Games levered the national team into the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
The decision to boycott the 1980 Games interrupted a run of four Olympic appearances on the trot by the national hockey team. Although the Malaysian team returned to the Olympic arena at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the no-show at Moscow was a blow to a slew of national players who had been inducted into the national team at the 1976 Olympics and would have relished the chance to embellish their claim to a kind of hockey immortality: successive appearances at the Olympics are regarded as an elitist badge of honour.
The Malaysian football team has not qualified for the Olympic Games since the Moscow boycott, a now nearly four-decade absence that is almost certain to last into the future. There is no saying that had the vintage the Malaysian players sported in 1980 been allowed an Olympic airing, the decline in international rankings the sport subsequently suffered may have been averted. It’s a hypothetical question, yet one of beguiling interest.
The government’s decision to boycott the Moscow Games was accepted by the sports establishment and sports press without demur. At that time, the sports press enjoyed more room that their political counterparts to criticise policies and acts of the executive. But the sports press did not make use of this latitude to critically scrutinise the decision to boycott.
Whether this stance of meek acquiescence stemmed from support for the decision to boycott or, what was more likely, insufficient consideration of what a no-show would mean to the affected athletes, the position has worn poorly with time. The press should have been less acquiescent.
Actually, there’s no place for politics in sports. Although it is very difficult to separate the sports sphere from the political one, this dichotomy has come to be regarded as a healthy necessity, like the separation of church and state in the political sphere.
Like water and oil, the two spheres cannot mingle and ought to be kept separate. On those sound grounds alone, the decision to boycott the Moscow Games ought to have been opposed.

Boycotting the Games meant that the top footballers, hockey players and other athletes in Malaysia who had reasonable hope of participating in the Olympics, were deprived of an all too rare chance of competing at what is considered the highest realm of sport where over a span of a fortnight the Games is a global cynosure.
No matter how one looks at it, the Olympics since its advent in 1896 is one of modernity’s great achievements, a two-week celebration of sporting ideals – Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) – that however much they have been tainted in recent decades by corruptions such as drug use and bribery, retain their perjuring value.
That something like two score Malaysian top-notch sports performers of the late 1970s were deprived of the chance to gaining a semblance of Olympic lustre is regarded, in the perspective of the years gone by, as a callous decision, a snuffing out of human potential which by its nature has only a brief time span in which to flourish.
The sports press were remiss in not critiquing the decision and in reminding both government and the public that certain ideals must be preserved though the heavens fall.

By
Tony Mariadass: Contrary to the common belief that the life of sports journalists is a bed of roses, it is indeed laden with thorns.
Having been a sports scribe from the rookie stage at the age of 19 and clocked-in 40 years on the beat, I have had my share of unpleasant episodes.
However, I have no regrets making sports journalism my profession and would not trade it for any other. One learns early to take the rough with the smooth.
My first taste of the rancour that can stem from covering sports occurred when I was a stringer for the Malay Mail in the late 1970s. The late veteran sportswriter Francis Emmanuel asked me to follow-up on a story he was doing.
I had to go to the PJ Club to obtain information on the suspension of a senior committee member and to photograph the suspension notice on the club’s notice board.
Being a rookie I was naturally excited about the assignment. Armed with a camera, I walked into the club to look for the notice board and found the suspension notice. I started to take pictures. Before I knew, a man tapped my shoulder and asked what I was doing. When I told him, he went berserk.
“Who do you think you are? he yelled. “Walking into a private club and taking pictures without getting any permission? This is a private matter and you have no business here,” he berated me.
He demanded I hand my camera to him. I was trembling and wondering what I had got into.
The man took the camera, pulled out the film and told me to get out of the club before he called the police.
I rode my ‘kapchai’ back to the office only to be greeted by Francis who demanded to see the pictures and information from my recce. When I told him what had happened, he laughed.
“You thought you can walk into the club and just walk out with the pictures. This will show you there are many obstacles in our job and you have to work around it,” he said. Next day, Francis had the story in print. From then on I was very careful about getting stories and made sure I adhered to procedures and rules. Francis also had another peculiar way of bringing rookie reporters down to earth: he would not give you the byline you requested.
For my first story as a stringer – on a former international footballer plying his trade in Hong Kong he gave my name as
T. Mariadass.
Other bylines included Anthony Mariadass, Tony Mariasoosai! All these before he finally gave me my requested byline: Tony Mariadass. Then we had to deal with officials and athletes who seek you out for the publicity, but if you write anything negative or expose their shortcomings, blunders, or if your views do not go down well with them, they will blow their top, avoid you, bar you from covering their events, write letters to your editor accusing you of being biased or influenced by other officials or parties. You get screamed at, asked to get out of their offices, barred from training grounds and stadia, have people heckle you, and in some instances even threaten you.
I have been asked to leave the training ground at Penampang Stadium in Sabah and refused entrance to the Likas Stadium with my press accreditation and had to buy a ticket to gain entry.

Then I was not allowed to use the media room facilities, thus forcing me to stand outside the room and led by security officials to the seat indicated in the ticket I had bought to gain entry to the stadium.
I had to go through all this because a top official of the Sabah FA was upset with an article I had written. Of course, over time all is forgotten and we are friends again. Incidentally, the official is a Cabinet minister today.
Then we have officials who are supposed to be guardians of their sports but act otherwise.
A prominent official (now deceased) in the FA of Malaysia – not an elected office-bearer but head of an important sub-committee approached the Ulu Klang Recreational Club (UKRC), asking them to surrender their field and clubhouse in return for a smaller plot of land which is government property and already had a community building on it. The official, who is a property developer, had told UKRC president Andrew Gopal that the UKRC ground was suitable for a condominium project.
URKV had rejected the offer but the developer’s company working through the village’s (Hulu Kelang) security and development committee tried to acquire the land.
It was astonishing that while the number of playing fields in the Klang Valley is dwindling, someone in FAM was willing to be complicit in reducing the number further.
While this news was reported in the The Malay Mail on 20 November 2002, what was not reported was that Andrew was offered by the official two condo units if he agreed to let go of his club’s grounds. Andrew, who is battling to regain the UKRC ground, maintains till today such an offer was made.
“I flatly refused the offer. I was disgusted and walked out of his room,” said Andrew when contacted recently.
“We are still homeless without a ground of our own and continue to host our annual veterans’ tournament at rented venues but we have not given up on getting the field which rightly belongs to us.
“The FAM official has passed away and his plans did not materialise.
But others have similar plans and we have still not got back the field which was seized from us by the Ampang Jaya Municipality.
“Things are no different between Barisan Nasional and the Opposition. In the end they have their own agenda and denied us the right of ownership to the field,” said Andrew.
The battle continues. While some officials have brought shame to their sports, there are others who made a difference – for the better. But things being what they are, there is no room for good officials.
As the year 1996 drew to an end, it was remembered in football when
three godfathers of the game had the curtains drawn down on them in their respective states.
Two were unceremoniously booted out while the third suffered the same fate soon after.
The three were former Kuala Lumpur FA president Tan Sri Elyas Omar,
former Johor FA deputy president the late Datuk Suleiman Mohamed Noor, and Kedah FA deputy president the late Datuk Ahmad Basri Mohamad Akil.
All three had done a great deal for their state FAs and for the rise of soccer in their states.
It is through their time, dedication, vision and love for the game that their respective states hogged the limelight in Malaysian soccer.
But sadly, all three were dumped after they lost their influence following loss of their government posts. What they had done over the years was forgotten and they were made scapegoats for the decline and poor financial standing of their associations.
The three ‘Godfathers of Football’ became victims of the winds of change and politicking. While sports officials are part and parcel of our sportswriting, wives of officials, too, have played a role in making a sports journalist’s life miserable.
Experiences of being told off or phones slammed by wives of officials when negative articles were written on their husbands or even the associations they helm were normal.
But officials like Tan Sri Elyas made us forget such exasperations by apologising profusely on behalf of his wife when I had brushes with her. Elyas was magnanimous.
Then we had a wife of a FA president (Datuk Mohamad Aini Taib) who acted like she was manager of the state team.
It was a common to see her walking into the dressing room before the game, at halftime and at the end of a game, to talk to players and give her two sen worth of advice, not to mention a scolding too.
It has indeed been a journey for me, but despite the occasional bad experiences, the memories have superseded the unpleasant encounters to make an unforgettable experience I will cherish forever.
But like we say in our trade, we are only as good as our last byline!

By
R.Pathmarajah: The 1972 Munich Olympics Games will forever be remembered as the “Tragic Games”. The body count was 11 members of the Israel team. Germany had one casualty, a police officer. There were five more dead accounted for and they were members of the Palestinian terror group called Black September. The mass killing happened on September 5 and 6.
On the morning of the massacre we were going for breakfast when we were informed that the Games had come to a standstill. At our morning meeting later, we were told that the Games had been called off.
We were not allowed to leave the Games Village and at the same time the public was not allowed to come into the village. After getting this sad news, Brian Sta Maria, R. Rama Krishnan and I were walking along the perimeter fence of the Village when we were approached by a German journalist. I was wearing the Malaysian tracksuit top. He asked if I was willing to exchange my track top for his windcheater. He told us he needed to get into the village as he had something very urgent to do. Being naïve, I fell for it and made the exchange.
That night at our regular team meeting ,the Chef de Mission, Raja Azlan Shah asked who had given their tracksuit top to a German journalist. I owned up and he told me to make a report at the village police station.
Sieh Kok Chi, the Malaysian Olympic official, accompanied me to the police station to make the report. At the police station I was questioned and photographed. My tracksuit top was handed to me and I was asked to return the German journalist’s windcheater.
I returned it but on hindsight I shouldn’t have, as the windcheater was full of badges from the participating countries. It would have made a very good souvenir.

By
R.Yogeswaran: Till this very day a former national hockey captain says, “thank you” to me. Here is the untold story…..
Malaysian Hockey had qualified to participate in the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games. This would  make it the third time Malaysia would feature in the Olympics. The previous two being Melbourne 1956 and Tokyo 1964.
For the record, Malaysia (then Malaya) had also qualified for Rome 1960 but financial woes resulted in the team not being able to make the trip.
Ironically the  late  Tun Abdul Razak who was then the Deputy Prime Minister was also the president of both, the Olympic Council of Malaysia and the Malaysian Hockey Federation.
There was tremendous enthusiasm and competition amongst players in wanting to make the team to Mexico.
For some it would be their first Olympics and for others their last.
Two such players, amongst many, were young fullback N. Sri Shanmuganathan of Selangor and the rugged looking, handle bar moustached Tara Singh, also a fullback but from Negri Sembilan.
I  was of course another eager aspirant wanting to make my  second Olympics appearance, the first being Tokyo ’64.
In January 1968, Malaysia accepted a Pakistani invitation to participate in the Lahore Invitational Tournament.
This tournament was important for it would serve as preparation for  the forthcoming Mexico Olympics.

The call-up and selection was in progress with centralised training at the Police Depot under the ‘Wine Merchant’ turned coach, V.V. Naidu from Bangalore, India.
Tara Singh, a very dedicated and passionate Negri stalwart, regularly did his road runs along the old trunk  road from Seremban to Malacca. This was the same route Dato Dr. Aziz Durairatnam, a “kingmaker” and  senior vice president of MHF travelled from Malacca to KL regularly for his medical and hockey meetings.
Tara was spotted and got his first national call-up. Tara was at his peak and with strong support from Dato Dr. Aziz, it was common knowledge amongst players and officials  that he would make the team.

Two days before the final selection, something tragic happened to Tara.
Many who played and trained with me knew never to come into my line of fire when I am on full flight and making a cross from the left, especially a ‘wrong foot’ cross, a very rare skill I picked up from cricket, a game I have played at high level. Many a man did and many a man fell. Poor Tara did and he fell which resulted in a fractured ankle.
The next day after the final trials, Raja Azlan Shah, deputy president and chairman of the Selection Committee announced the final team to travel to Pakistan.
Tara’s name which was already included in some of the selectors list was out and Sri Shan’s name was in.

This was the beginning of Sri Shan’s national hockey career and he subsequently moved on to represent the nation in three Olympics and three World Cup tournaments captaining two of each of the tournaments. Tara’s dream of a national  ’cap’ was crushed.
I virtually cried for Tara, a wonderful human being and great team man. He was loved by one and all. Under normal circumstances, he would have easily made the team and that would have been the beginning of his national hockey career.
All the playing equipment, tracksuits and jerseys that were given to me, I presented to Tara who continued to represent Negri Sembilan for many years and later turned to coaching.
Tara passed on two years ago in Port Dickson, and I was saddened by it. May Tara’s soul rest in peace.

By
S.Balasingam: We went to the 1972 Munich Olympic Games with too many forwards. Why the Malaysian Hockey Federation selectors made such a poor selection baffled the senior players. We were certainly not happy as the selectors left out several essential players who had the merit over some of those selected. Until today the selection baffles me.
Just three weeks before our departure to Munich, some of the seniors made personal appeals to Raja Azlan Shah, the team manager. We wanted other players who were not selected included to bolster the forward line. Raja Azlan was sympathetic to our reasoning. However, as the squad was already made up of 18 players, he told us he could only take one extra player along.
He asked us for our choice. We were unanimous in wanting Yang Siow Meng. Raja Azlan accepted our choice and Yang was back in the squad, although we could have also used the services of right winger Robin Goh.
Yang, who was dropped from the initial squad, became an influential player in all our matches in Munich. On hindsight, thanks to Raja Azlan, he turned out to be more than a player. Raja Azlan made him the team strategist. All the team planning and meetings were handled by Yang and he did a great job of it.

Despite being so short in midfield and attack, it was a wonder that we finished in eighth spot which was our best placing to date in the Olympic series. If we had made a better selection, I dare say we could have been in the top four in 1972.

By
Yang Siow Meng: The headlines screeched ‘Yang Siow Ming axed from Olympic squad’ that fateful day after the selection was announced. My disappointment was acute.
Yes, I had been omitted from the list of 18 players to the 1972 Munich Olympics held in August that year.
When the chairman of the selection committee of the Malaysian Hockey Federation, Raja Azlan Shah, had read out the names I was dumbstruck at my omission. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. “It must have been the trials,” I thought to myself. “I had not played well in the trials. It could have been my fitness level,” I mused.
I didn’t speak to anyone that evening. I just packed my bags and headed straight home. In the quiet of my haven I had the chance to ponder my situation. It was to have been my last Olympics (I played at the previous one in Mexico and was on the fringes of selection to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics) – and I blew it!
Nostalgia drew me to memories of my heyday as an international as I began reconciling myself to the fact I was no longer needed in the national squad. It took me a couple of days to recover my equanimity. Little did I know that some players like N. Sri Shanmuganathan and Harnahal Singh were busy pleading with Azlan Shah to reinstate me.

To cut a long story short, Tuanku decided I would be the 19th man. None had brought up the issue of the 19th man but I realised that one of the 19 players will have to be dropped to satisfy International Oympic Committee strictures. The issue resolved itself later in Munich.
Yes, I was back in the team. I had a lot to think about. Firstly, my fitness level. I spent the next week or so running at nights to get my fitness up to mark. I spent a lot of time thinking about the games I would be playing and what my role vis-a-vis the other players would be. I had never done that before a tournament.
Once we got to Germany, the players got down to training and playing practice matches. I remember one practice game against Frankfurt 1880. I was somewhere in midfield when I received a pass from our fullback. I relayed it to Mahendran who sent a through ball to the right which I dashed after. The Frankfurt left half ( his name was Ekardt, a German international) who was behind me, then accelerated past me and there was a tussle for the ball. It was then I realised how much stronger and speedier were the Germans compared to us.
The 19th player became a non-issue because there was one player carrying an injury even before we departed for Germany. It was Randir Singh, so he became the 19th man and the rest of us were registered.
The tournament started on August 27. We played Uganda and easily won 3-1. The next day we played Germany and lost 1-0. More on this match later. On the third day we played Spain, drawing 0-0. After a day’s rest, our fourth match was against France which we won 1-0. Our fifth match was against Belgium which we won 4-2. We lost 3-0 to Pakistan in our sixth match. Our last pool match was against Argentina which we won 1-0.
On the eve of the match against Germany I was called upon by Tuanku Raja Azlan to brief the team on how we should play. I had seen the Germans and found them proficient in their respective positions. I told our team we should not waste energy running with the ball because the Germans were faster and proficient tacklers.

This I learnt from our match against Frankfurt 1880. I also said they have a very good sweeper in Michael Peters who launches attacks from midfield. We needed to cut all passes to him. It was decided M Mahendran would mark the sweeper to cut off supply.
The Germans were visibly surprised at our tactic of marking the sweeper out of the game. Most of our players did not know much about the German team and were unprepared for the encounter. I had made this tournament the best of my career even though our final placing was a middling eighth. With a little bit of luck and perhaps better umpiring we could have finished the pool matches in second place and thus qualified for the semi-finals. I truly believed this result was attainable.

By
Dennis Shepherdson: My father Anselm Nicholas Shepherdson was born in Taiping on 14 May 1900. He worked with the Malayan Railways. He was a very talented all-round sportsman excelling in football, hockey, cricket, athletics, rugby and billiards. His top priority was football and hockey. He was popularly known as ‘Shep’ among his colleagues. He had a large family of six sons and six daughters.
The Railway Institute ground in Sentul in Jalan Ipoh was the nursery of sports activity after the Second World War. It produced many state and national sportsmen especially in cricket, football and hockey. I vividly remember that come 4.30 pm every day the boys would converge at the ground for their share of activity. Cricket, football, hockey, tennis and badminton would be played in this huge ground. I also clearly remember a regular feature at the tennis courts would be the burly Durairatnam, father of Hector Durairatnam walking steadily to the beautiful lawn tennis courts.

MIKE: He was a naturally talented sportsman. As a matter of fact in any ball-game he played, he was a very crafty and intelligent billiard player and went on to represent the National Electricity Board in the inter-government services competition. He was a natural and talented 100m sprinter, even a 110m hurdler. He possessed the natural technique and style required to succeed in this area. Of course, cricket was his forte. He was coached by none other than an Oxford Double Blue (cricket and rugby) Tom Hart.
He took his coaching very seriously and would continue the exercises after his coaching sessions, that is certainly walking the extra mile. Besides his batting prowess he was also a good leg-spinner. In fact, he earned his state colours in a match-winning performance by taking five wickets in an inter-state match played at the Klang Coast Club ground. Over the years Mike made a number of centuries particularly against Hong Kong in the Inter-Port Series.

I would rate his best performance as the 132 runs he made against Hong Kong at the Padang in Kuala Lumpur. At hockey he was like a guiding light. Playing at centre half he could oversee the whole game. He had that uncanny talent to be able to read the game within 10 minutes and then counter the tactics of the opponents.
His sense of anticipation was remarkable. He would leave gaps to entice opponents to make the pass and then intercept it. Mike represented Malaya at hockey in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. As a result of his performance at the Games he was chosen to represent the World XI vs the Olympic champions, thus becoming the first Malayan to achieve the feat. He also represented Malaysia at the Asian Games in Tokyo in 1958 and Jakarta in 1962.
Mike had the distinction of captaining Malaysia at both cricket and hockey. Such was his versatility in sports that in 1962 he was vying for selection in the Selangor state football trials when he broke his leg and was strongly advised to give up the game and concentrate on cricket and hockey. I attribute Mike’s success in cricket to he being physically and mentally strong and fit resulting in his ability to fully concentrate for long periods on the pitch.
CHRISTIE: Standing at 6 feet 2 inches tall, he was also talented at cricket, hockey and athletics. He was an opening bowler and middle order batsman. He was an aggressive batsman who would always be looking to score runs quickly. At hockey, he was a speedy right winger for the state and country. For Kilat Club and NEB he was a centre forward and prolific goalscorer . He represented Malaysia at the 1958 Tokyo Asian Games as a right winger. At athletics he was fairly active in 100m, 200m, 400m, 110m hurdles and long jump.

DENNIS: I was overshadowed by my elder brothers. Like my brother Christie I stand at 6 feet 2 inches tall. I represented St .John’s Institution at cricket and hockey. As a matter of fact all of us schooled at St. John’s. In 1954 I captained the school cricket team to win the Van Der Holt Trophy for the inter-schools Under-19 competition at the state level.
I represented Selangor in 1958 after some fine performances as an opening bowler for Kilat Club in the Stonor Shield inter-club competition. However, I wasn’t a regular as at that time Selangor had the likes of stalwarts like Arthur Dewes, Allan Jones and T. Sivagnanam — all opening bowlers who represented Malaysia.
In fact in their absence for outstation games I opened the batting and bowling for Selangor. However, my best performance in inter-state cricket was in 1975 at the age of 40 years. In the final of the inter-state MCA League competition played at the Kilat Club ground, my six wickets for 13 runs for Federal Territory in the second Selangor innings under the astute captaincy of Hector Durairatnam, helped FT to skittle Selangor out for a mere 36 runs to win by a comfortable margin. My performance earned me the Man of The Match award.
VIVIAN: He was also an opening bowler and played for Selangor for a short while. However, due to work commitments he could not play regularly. He was an accurate bowler who kept a decent length and moved the ball into the batsman. In one match against Singapore he took five wickets.
MY SISTERS MAUREEN AND GLEN were also involved in sports. Maureen the elder of the two represented the Police at netball. The younger Glen was a 100m sprinting champion with NEB and also represented Lembaga Letrik Negara at netball.
FINALLY: My dad’s advice — never play dirty, play the game not the man.
My dad’s only regret is that none of his sons took to his favourite sport – football.