{"id":558,"date":"2020-02-25T15:11:07","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T15:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/?p=558"},"modified":"2020-05-07T18:04:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T18:04:13","slug":"a-class-of-their-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/2020\/02\/a-class-of-their-own\/","title":{"rendered":"A Class of Their Own"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-564\" src=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-02-234x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"234\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-02-234x300.jpg 234w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-02-768x984.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-02-799x1024.jpg 799w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-02-328x420.jpg 328w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-02-640x820.jpg 640w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-02-681x873.jpg 681w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 234px) 100vw, 234px\" \/>By<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>Terence Netto:\u00a0<\/strong>Most Malaysian sports fans who lived through the period would be apt to argue that the era between 1966, when we earned an overachiever\u2019s share of gold medals at the Asian Games, and 1980, when we qualified for, albeit did not go, to the Moscow Olympics, was the golden age of Malaysian sport.<br \/>\nMalaysia\u2019s victory, though marred by volatile Indonesian fan behaviour, at the Thomas Cup in 1967; the soccer team\u2019s unprecedented qualification for the 1972 Munich Olympics; and a hitherto unattained fourth place at the 1975 World Cup of hockey, were a triad of achievements which fortify the claim that the 1966-80 period was the anni mirabilis of Malaysian sport.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-563 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-01-300x186.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"186\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-01-300x186.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-01-768x477.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-01-677x420.jpg 677w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-01-640x397.jpg 640w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-01-681x423.jpg 681w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-01.jpg 849w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\nThe accuracy of this description is reinforced once we factor in the popular satisfaction felt in Dr Mani Jegathesan being declared \u201cAsia\u2019s fastest man\u201d at the 1966 Bangkok Asiad; the exhilaration of shuttler Tan Aik Huang\u2019s winning the All-England singles title in 1966, and the doubles combo of Tan Yee Khan and Ng Boon Bee thrillingly grabbing practically every title in sight in the mid-1960s, for a grand Malaysian haul of coveted laurels in that halcyon era.<br \/>\nThough it was a fleeting moment of glory, Mokhtar Dahari\u2019s brilliant goal from 40 metres out against the England B football team in May 1978, his shot dipping in flight over out-of-position keeper Joe Corrigan, underscored the Malaysian potential for tantalising glimpses of world class potential, if, alas, largely unfulfilled.<br \/>\nAdding piquancy to the flavour of those early achievements was the unofficial declaration of Vijayanathan Gulasingam in the 1975 World Cup &#8212; which Malaysia staged in a rousing exposition of the sport\u2019s aesthetic values \u2013 as the best hockey umpire in the world.<br \/>\nHis awarding a disputed goal to India in a rapturous final match contested by Pakistan displayed the discerning, delicate touch of a surgeon separating Siamese twins joined at the head.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-562 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-03-223x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"223\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-03-223x300.jpg 223w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-03-768x1032.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-03-762x1024.jpg 762w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-03-313x420.jpg 313w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-03-640x860.jpg 640w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-03-681x915.jpg 681w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-03.jpg 1277w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 223px) 100vw, 223px\" \/>This last bit of arcana paves the way for a discussion of sports administration values the country was gifted to enjoy, simply from having three of the most skilled secretaries of national sports bodies who were also widely perceived as just about the best of the kind in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The three were Viji, as he was popularly called, Edmund Yong Joon Hong in golf, and Paul Mony Samuel in football.<br \/>\nNear contemporaries Viji and Edmund were in harness in the Malaysian Hockey Federation and Malaysian Golf Association respectively over about the same span of time, from the 1960s through to the early 1980s.<br \/>\nPaul Mony was appointed to the general secretary\u2019s post in the Football Association of Malaysia in 1984 when our position in FIFA\u2019s rankings had begun their slide into what seems like lasting mediocrity.<br \/>\nAs that slippage took effect, international observers were puzzled as to why Malaysian football was sliding while the administrative mettle of its general secretary was regarded as world class. If this discrepancy was the subject of discussion among international observers, among local sportswriters it became the topic of handwringing commiseration.<br \/>\nTo be sure, administrative skills and on-field sports performance belong to a different order of things. But just as Paul Mony did not appear like an apparition out of thin air, for that matter neither Viji nor Edmund Yong, but instead sprung out of the whole cloth of Malaysian sport, the 1950s\u2019 subcultures which produced all three standouts were already waning when this trio displayed their vintage in the national bodies they steered and for the regional and continental bodies, to which they were appointed, because of their merits.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-561\" src=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-04-300x236.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-04-300x236.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-04-768x603.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-04-535x420.jpg 535w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-04-640x502.jpg 640w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-04-681x535.jpg 681w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-04-511x400.jpg 511w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-04.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>The chief features of the subcultures were an education system that had English as the medium of instruction, schooling that emphasised academic attainments in tandem with extracurricular distinction, and propped up by an ethos that did not lose sight of the fact that certain pursuits must be done for the intrinsic satisfaction they afford more than the extrinsic rewards that could be gained.<\/p>\n<p>All these features began their descent into oblivion from our national milieu as this trio of top qualify administrators reached the heights of their capabilities. A social engineering process was afoot in the country that had negative consequences on all aspects of national endeavour. Against this backdrop of decline, this trio stood exceptionally apart. Edmund Yong was held to be capable of refereeing the Masters competition at Augusta National, Viji would have been a credit to the FIH, the French initials of the world body for hockey, and Paul Money could have administered FIFA minus the dross that has floated in Joseph Blatter\u2019s slipstream.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-560 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-05-300x231.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"231\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-05-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-05-768x590.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-05-546x420.jpg 546w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-05-640x492.jpg 640w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-05-681x523.jpg 681w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-05.jpg 795w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Incidentally, long-time FIFA general secretary Sepp Blatter, on an evaluation visit to FAM in the early 1990s, pronounced the national body as one of the best run in the world. Paul was then the general secretary.<br \/>\nWhen he left the FAM post in mid-2000, the national body had RM5 million in cash deposits and fixed assets of RM100 million. Upon assumption of the post in 1984, the corresponding figures were RM500,000 and RM5 million. It was caretaking of the highest probity.<br \/>\nIn a 32-year career (1975-2007) as a sportswriter, I consider myself gifted to have observed all three Malaysians in their administrative prime. Watching them at work was a delight in itself. But more than delight, it was an education.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-559\" src=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-06-208x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"208\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-06-208x300.jpg 208w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-06-768x1109.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-06-709x1024.jpg 709w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-06-291x420.jpg 291w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-06-640x924.jpg 640w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-06-681x984.jpg 681w, https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Terence-Netto-06.jpg 783w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 208px) 100vw, 208px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I was too young to realise its meaning even as I witnessed it, but it was an education into what I eventually understood as the profound truth of what the writer E.M. Forster, of Passage to India fame, opined about the need for democracy in human affairs.<br \/>\nHe said that all government is about force and that democratic government is the least destructive of such force because its processes draw out and camouflage this force. He said the good of this deliberative process lay in how it enables the real work of man to be done and the real life of man to be lived.<br \/>\nWatching Viji, Edmund and Paul, I saw real work being done and how that enhanced the lives set free to be lived. Probably because he had a life outside of his passions, which were sports administration and hockey umpiring, Viji has endured the longest of the three, alive and still vital, at 86 years, as I write.<\/p>\n<p>Edmund died of cancer in 1997 close on 62 years and Paul succumbed to Parkinson\u2019s disease in 2016 when he neared 72. Of the trio, I most benefited from watching Paul Mony because of what I felt was the breadth of his vision, depth of his understanding, and, more importantly, the generosity of his spirit.<br \/>\nOur lives are blinks of duration but when they possess what Viji exuded, Edmund epitomised and Paul embodied, they can be tiny diamonds in the cosmic sands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Terence Netto:\u00a0Most Malaysian sports fans who lived through the period would be apt to argue that the era between 1966, when we earned an overachiever\u2019s share of gold medals at the Asian Games, and 1980, when we qualified for, albeit did not go, to the Moscow Olympics, was the golden age of Malaysian sport. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf-malaysia","category-malaysia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Class of Their Own - My Sports Flame<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mysportsflame.com\/sportsflame\/2020\/02\/a-class-of-their-own\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Class of Their Own - My Sports Flame\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Terence Netto:\u00a0Most Malaysian sports fans who lived through the period would be apt to argue that the era between 1966, when we earned an overachiever\u2019s share of gold medals at the Asian Games, and 1980, when we qualified for, albeit did not go, to the Moscow Olympics, was the golden age of Malaysian sport. 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