By
Hishamuddin Aun: You must be new, eh? Those were the words I remember vividly how Paul Mony Samuel (later a Datuk Seri) greeted me when I met up with him in his office as the Assistant General Secretary of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).

It was my first four-eyed meeting with the man – long after everyone had left the building — after one monthly FAM Council meeting in 1982 that normally convened on a Sunday.

Yes, I must admit I was still wet behind the ears then, and going to meet him alone with no one for company required more than just a bit of courage. The prospect of facing this colossal personality, was intimidating, to say the least.

And the fact I had just been assigned the beat of a football writer by my employer, Berita Harian, was not made any easier by the popular belief then that Paul was not friendly with the vernacular press.

It was small wonder why my colleagues then preferred to cover team trainings and football matches rather than making   frequent visits to Wisma FAM. In fact, to some, he was even branded a racist. If anything, some quarters would claim Paul would only talk to the English press unless it was a pre-arranged press conference where he had to address all and sundry.

How these people would portray him as someone who looked down on the Malay press – albeit it was us who should take the blame for our lack of confidence and eloquence and being scared of the man himself.

Alone just among us, football reporters from the Malay dailies at that time, I remember the constant shoving for me to take the lead whenever we chanced upon Paul close to the field next to Wisma FAM where the national team would have their trainings.

Honestly, we did not know how to start a conversation with him and we feared saying the wrong things or asking the wrong questions that might lead to a rebuke from him.

In retrospect, I find it rather weird and peculiar as Paul, a former school teacher in Kuala Ketil, Kedah and later a lecturer in a teachers training college, was equally conversant in English and Bahasa. Not only that, he was friendly and endearing too.

Ask him a question in Bahasa and he would enlighten you in text-book Malay that would be more than good enough for you to quote him verbatim.

However, he was said to be a man who gives very little information and was famous for the “don’t quote me” and “this is strictly off the record” kind of instructions.

Initially, I fell for that too – always hiding behind my seniors from the New Straits Times, The Star and The Malay Mail in wanting to avoid eye contact with the man and also not having to ask any questions but conveniently copied the answers and explanations he gave them.

But that brief meeting in his office in 1982 – meant to introduce myself as I did not have such an opportunity earlier — changed my perception towards him completely. And I must have summoned enough courage in between stuttering to share with him how he was often described as unfriendly to the vernacular press – by reporters from the Malay press mostly –and instead favoured a select few from the English press.

Upon being told that, Paul was more amused than offended.

“Siapa yang cakap ini?,” he boomed back. That was Paul to the core, sensitive to remarks like that, especially when they weren’t true. It would affect him terribly.

“I’m always trying to be fair to everyone so long as they come up to me in wanting to confirm something or to ask for an explanation on an issue. But the problem is I don’t see too many reporters from the vernacular  press over anything. “Are they afraid of me or what?,” he chuckled. “So, please tell your friends they shouldn’t think that I am like that at all. And they are most welcome to see me on any issues,” he quipped. “Afraid” may not be the right word, it was more like having “too much respect”.  We were simply overawed by this man’s knowledge of the sport. He was always alert, and could handle any question, even the curving balls often sent in his direction, with relative ease.

I also learnt during the months after that that Paul wasn’t someone whom you could go up to and simply ask for ‘a back page lead story’. He will show you the door, and tell you not to waste his time.

With him, you have to come prepared if you are trying to fish for some quotes pertaining to an issue or feel like engaging him in a discussion on a specific subject matter. For, Paul had so much on his plate, as he micro-managed as well.

Was he a racist? Not Paul, not even by a long shot. He was a professional, who would answer any intelligent question put to him, to the best of his ability.

Everything was at his fingertips. Be it the rules of the game, the FAM constitution, problems the players were going through, dates, events, you name it and he knew them all. Which is probably why, he didn’t suffer fools gladly.

When he talked to you, explain a policy or a decision to the press, I couldn’t help visualizing, that it was as if he was standing in front of his class, talking to his students. For, he was patient in explaining it, making sure you understood the core of the message, so you won’t get it wrong in the papers the next day. He was both  articulate and coherent.

At the workplace, he was a different animal. There you would only see  the stern demeanor, the dogged diligence, and the meticulous manner in which he went about his ‘Call of Duty’, as General Secretary of FAM/AFC, FIFA Instructor, general coordinator of three World Cups, and the many other roles in which he served the beautiful game. But behind that administrator was a man with a heart of gold. He was blessed with a giving heart. Even if it wasn’t within his means, Paul would never turn away anyone who came to him for help.

For, to Paul nothing made him happier than being able to put a smile on those forlorn faces who had sought him out. He could have been a multi-millionaire from the positions of power he occupied, but that wasn’t Paul. He didn’t chase rainbows for the pot of gold.

He just wanted to be relevant, to be able to fix problems, to share his knowledge and vast experience with his charges, and leave a lasting legacy.

And he never did all that for his personal fame and glory. In fact, he was publicity-shy.

Paul would never surpass the president, the council and the exco but would rather let the top brass of the FAM enjoy the glare of the limelight.

Although he would be the one providing the gems that make for a great copy, he would always ask us to quote his boss, the then president of FAM, Sultan Ahmad Shah. Such was his respect for protocol that present day issues like the Players’ Status Committee requiring 100 days just to convene a meeting, would have been unheard of during his time.

In spite of all that, there were a couple of ‘attempted coups’ to oust him from the General Secretary’s post that were mostly racial in nature. But Paul survived each time, with the solid backing of the FAM president though his dedication and hard work would have been his best defence.

During his heyday as a football administrator, Paul to us was perhaps the most intelligent, articulate and knowledgeable football official we had ever met.

And, from that first four-eyed meeting in 1982, I will always remember Paul for being firm but fair and always had a clear understanding that a journalist too had a job to do. It is for that, too, I would forever be in awe of the man whom I have my highest respects for as a football administrator extraordinaire and a friend.

By
Hishamuddin Aun: I grew up idolising Mokhtar Dahari – which kid who loves playing football then wouldn’t – but unlike them, I must have been blessed to befriend Malaysia’s football legend that brought me close enough to writing his authorised biography. Alas,  fate decided otherwise.

“Tar (as I used to call him then), I need a whole week with you in Fraser’s Hill where we can talk about football, from your early days, your formative years, your highs and lows with Selangor and the national team and every little thing that you would like to share in your book,” I told him one day.

His reply came without much thought: “Consider it done, just tell me the dates for me to take leave from work, but why Fraser’s?” It was simply because The New Straits Times Press (NSTP) has an old bungalow there where it is quiet and without many distractions where we could talk football, eat football and sleep football. How all these came about was much of a surprise to me, and beyond my wildest dreams. Writing a biography of Supermokh – as the media and fans were fond of calling him – would have indeed been a privilege and honour, regardless of the hard work and the tedious probing that was required to bring out the best stories from him. “Sham, can I see you before training starts tomorrow?” Mokhtar asked me after an afternoon training session when he was coach of Kwong Yik Bank in 1987. (He had announced his retirement at the end of the previous Malaysia Cup season when Selangor capped a fine performance in a 6-1 win over Johor in the final  at the Merdeka Stadium.  What ensued the following day was something  I had not   prepared myself for. There he was at the clubhouse with his prized possession – several scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings featuring him as early as his Burnley Cup days with Selangor in 1971.    “Look at this clipping,” he said, drawing my attention to a tiny cutting from the widely circulated English football magazine   “Shoot” that wrote “A guy named Hero Dahari scored the equaliser in a 1-1 draw with England B”.  It was a small part of a column by the then England B striker, Gordon Hill, who went home from their Far East Tour much impressed with Malaysia’s prized footballer.

In the friendly match at a packed Merdeka Stadium on 30th May 1978, the visitors that boasted of among others Joe Corrigan, Viv Anderson, Alan Kennedy, Paul Mariner and Gordon Hill in their starting 11, led with Kennedy’s goal before Mokhtar’s glorious long range effort beat Corrigan in goal to tie the score. Of all the press clippings, Mokhtar told me that small piece, no more than four paragraphs in all, was the one he treasured the most and it meant the whole world to him.

Mokhtar had not only carefully selected, cut and pasted those newspaper cuttings himself onto the pages of the scrapbooks, but had also made jottings and footnotes to underline each and every write-up’s significance to him.

“Here, take these scrapbooks home with you. Just spend some time going through these cuttings and tell me your thoughts,” he continued. I can’t help noticing some of the more recent cuttings bore my byline which made me a little proud as well. “But why?” I asked ignorantly.

“I need your help to write a book for (about) me,” was his quick reply. “It is not about wanting to glorify myself but to share my story that could perhaps motivate our future generations,” he stressed.  It never crossed my mind on what he meant by “help” or how much I was to be paid but I immediately replied in the affirmative, much to Mokhtar’s gratitude.

Months went by without much progress on the book project – discussions on whether a one-time lump sum payment or a royalty on every copy sold was agreeable came to an impasse-when I decided to seek answers on what I thought to be the salient and selling points of his story before proceeding any further.

Mokhtar, after all, had been known to be very selective with journalists, restricting access to only a few whom he was comfortable with over the years and even so, preferred to choose his words very carefully and almost always keeping it brief – and often letting his exploits on the field do the talking for him.

Even his demeanour could be confusing at times. There were occasions when he would greet me like a long lost friend with his personal warmth – often with a bear hug — and at other times gave me the cold shoulder as if I was a total stranger in his eyes.

And, mostly for no apparent reason too.  You mustn’t think he had mood swings out of the blue but over the years, I had resigned myself to the fact that it was a part of Supermokh’s aura – he was similar to most of his teammates but distinctively different at the same time.

“Hah what do you want from me?” he would bark when approached after an energy-sapping hot afternoon training session or otherwise he would be making the first move: “I could sense that you’ve not been wanting to talk to me, why lah?”

Well, that was Mokhtar the enigmatic star of Malaysian football. Former New Straits Times sportswriter, the late Dan Guen Chin, a long time ghostwriter for Mokhtar for the latter’s weekly column – first with The Star and later with NST – could easily vouch for that.

I am forever indebted to Dan for it was he who introduced me to Mokhtar when I was still wet behind the ears as a football writer when the latter had been a household name and everyone’s hero for many years.  “Tar, can you be open enough with me on two ‘six-million-dollar questions’,” I asked him one afternoon to which he nodded. But I had earlier explained that it was part of the story line of his biography that would be important to his endearing fans. “Number one,” I continued, “there has been a lot of talk of you drawing strength from supernatural means; and number two, and some fans have accused you of ‘kelong’ (the more popular term used when a footballer is thought to have fixed the result of a match for  substantial monetary reward).”

Mokhtar frowned, stared at me in the face as if he was going to swallow me and then smiled. “I knew you were going to ask me that. But what surprised me is you too believed in all that,” he quipped.

“Well, I think it was about time I put everything on record so that such questions would not be posed to me ever again.” Bingo! Scrambling for my Sony micro-cassette tape recorder – a very important tool for reporters during such interviews then — my fingers must have trembled with excitement when Mokhtar began to speak rather cautiously. “It is not anything new for I have heard of this from a few close friends and relatives. The first time I heard about this, I laughed my heart out. How foolish and daft, I thought to myself.

“They were saying I used ‘susuk’ (the likes of a tiny golden needle to enhance one’s beauty or a steel needle where one is believed to draw strength from by way of inserting them into one’s face or limbs only to be performed by a shaman with so-called magical powers).

“Don’t they know I spent hours during and after training building on my muscle mass and what you see today is a result of years of hard work and toil. If ‘susuk’ can help me achieve this in a short space of time, then why would I bother pushing myself to the limit in every training session? And if at all this thing works, what’s stopping others, be they defenders or strikers like me, from doing the same and we could probably have a team of hunks playing in the World Cup already.

“Mind you, I have played for my state and country for more than a decade now. If at all I was using ‘susuk’, I would have had needles inside every inch of my legs today and that would surely cause me immense pain more than the so called strength that I should derive from,” he said.

“Pain” was something Mokhtar had become accustomed to with both his knees having to bear the brunt for all those hard running and endless pile-drivers that resulted in goals which brought a lot of joy to the spectators.

Mokhtar had had torn meniscus removed from both his knees through separate surgeries – the first in December 1976 — to enable him to continue his playing career, otherwise he would have to quit the game much sooner than he wanted to.

In fact, in spite of having announced his retirement at the age of 33 (born November 13,1953) after captaining Selangor to Malaysia Cup glory for the last time in the 1986 final, Mokhtar was coaxed to come back the following year to which he duly obliged only for Selangor to exit at the quarter-final stage.  “Every day when I got home, there would be two huge basins full of hot water with coarse salt added for me to dip both my knees in, just to ease the pain and discomfort as a consequence of hard training and running.

“Of course the fans do not know this. And how I wished ‘susuk’ could take care of this if what they were saying was true! Furthermore, I have always believed there is no short cut to real hard training, so much so all these talk about me using ‘susuk’ is totally untrue. As a staunch Muslim, it is something that Allah forbade me,” he remarked, “or else something bad would befall me.”   With that issue addressed, now come the real crunch. “Sham, tell me have you ever suspected me of selling matches or has any official implied that I had been on the take?” Mokhtar became the aggressor.  I did the obvious and just shook my head.

“Yes, I did it once,” he blurted out. “It was a game (against Singapore) that Selangor was not expected to win,” he explained. “I was induced with a $2,000-a-goal payoff and I scored a brace,” he said with a smile. “I swear that was the only time as I did not want to put too much pressure on myself and I would be greedy as goals are a result of team effort, not individual. Even that payoff came from a ‘big fan’, not from a bookie.”

Mokhtar understood very well that that was not the line of questioning that I had in mind when he continued: “But to take money to lose a game… never. All my life, I have only played to win.

“Furthermore, which bookie would want to waste their money on a striker,” he jested. “A striker does not determine the result of a match, perhaps he only spoils it.” That argument was however proven more of a myth than a fact as the infamous nationwide crackdown on football bribery in 1994 and 1995 as a result of a ‘Cabinet paper’ to rid the game of match-fixing, showed there were several strikers involved.

While talking on the same topic, it must have echoed in Mokhtar’s ears of the abusive shouts of “Mokhtar kelong… Mokhtar kelong” when he had gone through a bad patch and his goals begun to be few and far between.

This had led to his abrupt decision to quit the Selangor team at one point.  Mokhtar, however, refused to be drawn into saying whether or not any of his teammates were involved while adding it was the job of the team officials to find out and cleanse the team of such bad elements. “I may have my suspicions but I really don’t know because these things were not done openly. Of course I know if a teammate is playing well below his usual capability but how am I to say that this player or that player has taken a bribe.

“Similarly, the fans have been shouting ‘Mokhtar kelong’ – and I can tell you that really hurt – despite my conscience reminding me I have not. They paid 10 ringgit to watch you play, so I guess they had every right to express their displeasure. But if there is one thing that I wished the spectators would understand, it is not easy for a striker to keep scoring goals week in week out.

“In the midst of a sea of legs in the opponent’s box, and the space between the goalkeeper and his goal posts, the only room a striker has to place his shot to attempt a goal in that split second is no bigger than a toilet door,” he said.

Where Mokhtar was reluctant to divulge much on the bribery menace, his wife, Tengku Zarina Ibrahim, offered slightly more to it. “I remember one time he picked me up from work and he mentioned that he has resigned from the national team. And I asked him when? And he said this morning.

“I looked at him and asked why. He said football is no longer a clean game,” she said in a documentary The Untold Truth About Supermokh on the National Geographic Channel on 30th August 2010.

“I wanted to probe, I mean I wanted to discuss further but he said let’s drop the subject. I know that resigning from the national team was very painful for him,” she added. With that brief interview done, I knew at that point of time that I had a clear view of what direction the biography should take, with Mokhtar’s immense contribution in helping Selangor win the Malaysia Cup 10 times in 14 years and his exploits with the national team, including winning the bronze medal at the Tehran Asian Games in 1974 being his highest achievement, forming the basis of his story. However, the biography project remained a dream when Mokhtar had other priorities then as rumours abounded in late 1988 that he was suffering from a rare illness and eventually confirmed as motor neuron disease that led to his untimely and premature demise on July 11 1991.  To Mokhtar, I owe a week-long interview in the cool hills that never took place and a biography that had not even gone to its very first page. But, the memories of Supermokh certainly live on.

By
George Das: His eyes welled-up. There was a trickle rolling down his cheeks.
Tony Francis and I found ourselves in a rather awkward situation as we sat in front of Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaya/Malaysia.
We did not know how to comfort him.  We held back our questions as we allowed him to compose himself again.

I believe neither of us had ever been in a situation like this in our entire career. This took place on April 17th, 1975 at Tunku’s residence at Jalan Tunku (off Jalan Duta) in Kuala Lumpur.

Tony Francis from the New Straits Times and I (The Star) had arrived that late morning to interview Tunku.  We had on many other occasions interviewed him as the Football Association of Malaysia president, but this time we never expected the “unexpected” to happen.

We had come to know that there was a diplomatic row brewing between Tunku, who was also at that time the president of the Asian Football Confederation, and some of the Arab affiliates. The Arabs backed by powerful Kuwait, had wanted Tunku to expel Israel from participating in the 1974 Teheran Asian Games football competition.
“I was not happy with this move,” I remember Tunku telling us.
He explained: ‘This is sports and I strongly feel that politics should not creep into sports. The two should be separate.”

Tunku, with a choking voice, continued: “They even called me an infidel and a Jew lover just for standing up for sports.” And that’s when his eyes welled up, his voice choked a bit and the tears of the man rolled slowly down his cheeks as we witnessed the emotional side of Tunku, a sports lover.

Tunku stood his ground against football being politicised but he found himself fighting a lone battle for what he believed. Israel played in the 1974 Asian Games which was their last appearance.

They continued to attack Tunku viciously for his stand.
Finding himself without the backing of his own country (Football Association of Malaysia), he resigned as its president after heading it from 1951 to February 1975. He quit AFC on Dec 11th 1977.

By
George Das

My sportswriting career was “launched” in a most unceremonious way exactly 43 years ago.

Pak Samad (the late Tan Sri Samad Ismail), who was the New Straits Times Managing Editor then, came out of his room and shouted across the editorial floor: “Fauzi, besok engkau join Malay Mail sports desk.” (Fauzi, tomorrow you join the Malay Mail sports desk). That’s it. No official letter. Nothing. He wasn’t even properly dressed for the occasion, just in his singlet.

In those days, the air-conditioning in the old NST building quite often broke down.

Each time it did, Pak Samad would take off his shirt and walk around only in his singlet. It was on one such hot and steamy day that I was made a sportswriter. And my life was never the same again.

The people I met, the places I went to, the things I saw and heard in the profession changed my life forever.

For example, my most unforgettable encounter happened when I was working for the Sports Mirror in 1981. Malaysia’s king of the road, Ali Hassan, had died after a nasty accident while training along Jalan Duta. He had apparently hit a pothole, fell off his bike, hurt his head and died. I was assigned to interview the family.

When I arrived at the house, the whole family was in the living room mourning his death. The minute I introduced myself as a reporter, Ali’s mother flew into a rage. She rushed to the kitchen, grabbed a parang and came at me shouting, “Apa lagi kau orang mau, ah? Anak aku dah mati. Pergi! Pergi!” (What else do you all want, ah? My son has died. Go away! Go away!).

Shocked, I just stood there, unable to move. If not for the family members who stopped her, I believe I would have been chopped that day. Until today I can still hear her wails and screams. How do you deal with something like that?

Then there was time, in 1981, when I received a bullet in a white envelope left at the Sports Mirror office after I had written a story on bribery in football. That was definitely something to keep you awake at night. In 1994, yet another unnerving episode: rocks, wrapped in death threat notes, smashed through the kitchen windows into my house (more in separate article).

Truth is, I didn’t plan to be a sportswriter. I just wanted to be a journalist. The journey actually began when I was a student at the Malay College Kuala Kangsar. We had a very strict English teacher then. His name was Encik Razak Shafie. Before each school holiday he would always make us borrow a book from the school library, read it and then write a summary of the book. It was from there that I started appreciating the beauty of the English language and actually enjoyed doing the assignments.

And as fate would have it, when I was in Form 4, I met this guy on a bus while travelling back to school. His name was Ramli Panjang Ahmad. He happened to be a writer who occasionally contributed articles to Berita Harian. We became good friends. He would often invite me to his home in Padang Rengas for meals. We talked a lot too.

When he heard that I loved to write he immediately suggested that I should consider being a journalist. He even bought me books on journalism and kept encouraging me until I was convinced I really wanted to be a journalist. I’m really glad I did become one.

I’ve often told people around me that journalism – in my case, sportswriting — is not a job. It’s fun. In all my years as a sportswriter, I never felt I was doing a job. It was fun all the way. Like the saying goes, love your job and never work a day in your life. That I have done.

In fact, the fun started even before I got the job. It was during the job interview that I knew I was going to have a good time working at the NST. Having applied for a Cadet Journalist’s post while sitting for my Higher School Certificate (HSC) examinations in 1974, I was called for an interview at Balai Berita, Jalan Riong, Bangsar in early 1975.

It was Pak Samad who interviewed me together with the then NST Personnel Manager. I only remember him as Mr Thava. Seeing that I was from Malay College Kuala Kangsar, Pak Samad shot the first question: “Talk to me about homosexuality.”

What! “Is this a trick question?” I thought to myself. Noticing that neither Pak Samad nor Mr Thava was smiling, I braced myself and started answering. As I was talking, Pak Samad was going, “Hahaha, hahaha, hahaha…” Those who knew Pak Samad will know what I’m talking about here. The way he laughed when he liked something.

He kept asking me more questions, I kept answering, he continued laughing. It went on like that for a good 45 minutes. At the end of the interview, which I actually enjoyed, Pak Samad chased me out of the room, saying, “If you don’t hear from us within two weeks, you won’t get the job.”

On my way back to my hometown Kulim, Kedah, I stopped at MCKK to catch up with old friends and teachers at my alma mater. After spending almost a week in Kuala Kangsar, I called home to find out if there was any letter from the NST. There was. I asked my father, who had answered the call, to open the letter. I got the job.

I reported to Balai Berita in April 1975. After three months of doing court reporting and crime, I got that shout from Pak Samad from across the editorial floor to join the Malay Mail Sports desk.

Perhaps the biggest fun I had in my job was covering the 1990 World Cup in Italy. I spent a whole month travelling all over the country not only watching and writing about football but also enjoying the scenery, the food and the people. It was one unforgettable experience.

However, the thing I remember most about that assignment was how I acquired press accreditation. Actually, I wasn’t down to cover that World Cup. I was invited by the FA of Malaysia, together with a few other sportswriters, to join their delegation to attend the opening ceremony, watch the opening match and then return to Malaysia.

Somehow, while I was there, my bosses back in Kuala Lumpur decided I should stay on and cover the whole World Cup for the NST. I was thrilled to bits until I realised I did not have press accreditation to cover the event. As you might be aware, press accreditation is usually done months before the start of a World Cup and the organisers don’t entertain last minute requests.

Unperturbed, I decided to try my luck and headed to the press accreditation office in Rome. After listening, the person-in-charge just had this to say to me: “You are a very brave man to come all the way here without any accreditation.” He was actually mocking me, I thought.

Frustrated and not knowing what else to do, I asked him: “Do you know Mr Peter Velappan?” He said he did. Of course he did because Peter was the co-ordinator of the Italy World Cup. I didn’t know where Peter was based then. So I politely asked the person-in-charge if he could call Peter for me. Grudgingly, he dialled a number.

He spoke some Italian and after quite a long pause, handed the phone to me. How relieved I was to hear Peter’s voice on the other end. After explaining to Peter my predicament, I handed the phone back to the person-in-charge as instructed.

“Yes,….. Yes…. Yes…. Of course Mr Velappan,” was all I heard the person-in-charge say to Peter. Thirty minutes later I walked out of the building with my World Cup accreditation around my neck and lugging a big bag filled with World Cup souvenirs and other stuff that came along with the press kit. That, to me, truly defined the spirit of Malaysia Boleh.

Of course there were sad moments too. One such incident was the demise of Malaysia’s greatest footballer, whom I loved and respected tremendously, Mokhtar Dahari. My biggest regret is that I wasn’t in the country when Mokhtar passed away. I was working in NST’s London office then. I couldn’t attend his funeral.

I can’t exactly remember the last time I met Mokhtar. All I can remember of that final meeting was his frail body, which was a far cry from the solid and powerful footballer he once was. I remember seeing the sadness in his eyes and how I struggled to control my emotions – I just couldn’t believe why someone as honest, dedicated and hardworking, someone who had given so much to the country, could be afflicted with such a deadly disease. To me, Mokhtar was truly the greatest sportsman Malaysia had ever produced. They don’t make them like him anymore.

In fact, the same goes for the officials and sportsmen from that era – they don’t make them like you guys anymore. I really miss those good old days.

Talking about the good old days, I have to include the people I worked with – my colleagues. These are the people who influenced me the most in my career as well as in my life. Among them were Chua Huck Cheng, Francis Emmanuel, Bill Tegjeu, Tony Francis, George Das, Lazarus Rokk, R. Velu, Cheryl Dorall, Tony Danker, R. Nadeswaran, Terence Netto, Maurice Khoo, Leo Nathan, R.D. Selva, P’ng Hong Kwang, George Jeyaraj, and Tony Mariadass. Those were colleagues I met in the Seventies. And in the Eighties along came Johnson Fernandes, Hishamuddin Aun, Randhir Singh and Dan Guen Chin.

One of the things I enjoyed most during my rookie years was the late night suppers with my colleagues from the NST and the Malay Mail. After putting the first edition to bed before midnight, our favourite thing to do then was have supper. Actually, that was where I learned most about the job, from the stories told by my seniors.

I loved listening to how they went about getting their stories, building their contacts and how they would approach certain stories and so on. Most of the stories were funny and that made the sessions all the more enjoyable. Rokk and I were rookies then and we loved those sessions so much that we would even turn up at the office on our off days. Talking about Rokk, I’ve told him on so many occasions that he ended up in the wrong profession. He should have been a stand-up comedian instead of a journalist.

And I will always remember Tony Francis for giving me that column “Fauzi Omar on Tuesday”. I had just returned from the United States in 1984 after taking a break to study journalism at Boston University. I went straight to the NST sports desk to begin the second phase of my sportswriting career. I remember feeling fully recharged and ready to take on the world after my four-year stint in Boston. The column was just what I needed. Tony had taken over as Sports Editor from Mansoor Rahman and had given the desk a breath of fresh air. I remember looking forward to writing the column each week and I must say those were my most productive years as a sportswriter.

But if you ask me who was the one person that helped shape my career the most, that person has to be Bill Tegjeu. Bill was my senior when I joined the Malay Mail sports desk in 1975. Bill is a quiet, behind-the-scene kind-of-guy but his writing and his subbing work were perhaps, in m

y opinion, one of the best in the NST then.

The other person who has had a huge impact on both my professional and personal life is George Das. George has always been someone I aspire to emulate. His kindness, his generosity, his work ethic and discipline have always inspired me.

So what am I doing now? Not writing about sports anymore and quite happy about it too. The reason I say this is because the landscape has changed from the days when Rokk and I were reporting. As an example, a fellow sportswriter who had ventured into sports officialdom recently told me a very disturbing story, something that actually made me feel glad I’m out of it.

He told me that during one school tournament he noticed some of the teams only had Malay players. Disturbed by what he saw, he approached one of the teachers and asked him why only Malays. “Easy to prepare food and go for prayers together”, was the answer. Now, tell me, how do you deal with that?

And how can one forget how Farah Ann Abdul Hadi was mercilessly attacked on the internet because of the outfit she wore in competition. Some of the comments even accused her of having lost her faith, forsaking her religion. For heaven’s sake, she’s a gymnast. What do these people expect her to wear? A robe and tudung?

We may have achieved a lot m

ore at the international level these days but the undercurrent in Malaysian sports these days is not good. You may say the incidents I quoted above are isolated ones, but the fact that it has happened should alarm our sports authorities. For if things like that are not nipped in the bud, we will be hampered by even bigger things of the same nature in the future.

As for me, I’m happy not writing about sports anymore. But all the same, I’m grateful to Pak Samad for ordering me to the sports desk on that hot and steamy day 43 years ago. I wouldn’t want any of it to be different.  Not even by a bit.

By
Fauzi Omar