Singapore Democrats
The Singapore Democrats kicked off our inaugural Football Carnival last saturday, the first of its kind organised by a Singapore political party.
A total of 13 teams took part in the event which saw a mixture of competitive matches and exhibition games played over five hours.
In the competition proper, Team Paix emerged champions when it defeated FC Fushan Warriors 1-0 in the finals. (Watch videos below)
Party Chairman Jufrie Mahmood presented the SDP Challenge Trophy to the champions. Dr Ang Yong Guan gave away the prizes to the 1st runner-up and Dr Wong Wee Nam the 2nd runner-up, Galacticos.
The competition was intense as nine teams battled it out for the top prize. Unlike in an open pitch, close ball control and agility are prized skills in futsal. The teams did not disappoint as they delivered a high level of entertaining football. In fact, passions ran high in some of the games and players faced off in angry exchanges of words. But cooler heads prevailed and match officials managed to cooled things down.
They call it the Beautiful Game. But that was before the SDP seniors (dubbed ‘Team Uncles’ by our announcer) took to the pitch.
They formed two teams, SDP Fiesta and SDP Rocks, which played a series of exhbition games with two all-women teams comprising of ITE students: Fireflames 1 and Fireflames 2.
Fiesta and Rocks huffed and puffed in what resembled more like futsore.
On occasion – and against all odds – they managed to get the ball all the way to the edge of their opponents’ goal-line only to collapse in a heap of sweat and exhaustion. After the game, one of them grumbled: “If you think fighting the PAP is hard…”
Not everyone was equally bad, though. James Gomez and Vincent Wijeysingha acquitted themselves well. Alec Tok gave a good account of himself in goal and so did John Tan. Chee Siok Chin stood out among the women players.
Chee Soon Juan: “They were brutal…”
The junior league then came on with the kids taking to the field. Masterminding the operation was Chee Soon Juan.
The afternoon was not without its distractions. Friends brought along home-baked brownies and cookies which the players scoffed down in between games. A buffet of fruit including banana, pineapple, grape, starfruit, and watermelon helped boost energy levels.
All the goals and all the excitement will go down in another page in the SDP Book of Fun. It was also a great way to reach out to youths all over the island.
Coming up next year: A bigger carnival with even more competition and fun.
Faz, our announcer, appropriately summarised the day’s proceedings with a word from our sponsor: “This event was not brought to you by the PAP.”
Thanks, everyone!
See more event photos at the photo gallery.