ARFC in unlucky 4-4 draw

In an exciting match played on 17 Nov 07 (Sat) @ 9 pm at Tampines SAFRA, ARFC was held to an unlucky 4-4 draw by "Yellow Submarine" in front of the record attendance of 177,777 fans. Two main reasons contributed to the record attendance - (i) Towering Toh is making his come-back after his "fatherhood" hiatus; (ii) 'Spice Girls' is rumoured to be making their come-back by staging an appearance at half-time.

ARFC was also boosted by the presence of Caren, Jazlyn, Su (and baby Haron), Dora and Marco Mak, Brenda and Dylan Tan, Josephine and Teajanz Thng.

ARFC started the match with the regulars (minus determined Huiming) - Dependable Jinzhong in goal, astute-reading sweeper Elvis, Towering Toh, left-foot wizard Bernard and hard-running Guoxiong in defence; hard-working Tong, influential Sebastiano, talisman Derrick and sublime Khim in midfield; ARFC scoring legend Haron and powerful Alvin as strikers. The talent-studded subs were Kiat Gulam, Reliable David, unpredictable Blackburn, Speedy Hee and hard-man Tjioe.

ARFc immediately put the opponents under pressure with great movements, passing and off-the-ball running. However, once again, our forwards spurned the good chances created with poor control of the ball.

The opponents then punished ARFC with their first meaningful attack when their striker won the ball ahead of our keeper and put their team 1-0 up.

Despite one-goal down, ARFc continued its relentless pressure and was finally rewarded with an equaliser. ARFC scoring legend Haron won the ball ahead of their keeper near the 6-yard box and was upended by the latter, thereby giving the referee no option but to point to the spot. Upstep Haron to thump the ball home. 1-1 now.

Haron then had a chance to double his tally from sublime Khim's square cross but his goal was correctly ruled off-side. Unlucky!!

ARFC then took the lead when the ball was pumped high into the central area of the field. Hearing sublime Khim's shout, influential Sebastiano side-lobbed the ball for him to run through and slotted the ball past their keeper. 2-1!!

ARFC's defence then conceded a goal when unpredictable Blackburn, who had replaced astute-reading sweeper Elvis as the latter was heated up with the referee who was having a poor game, was late in closing down their ang-moh striker who shot home from close-range. 2-2.

ARFC the re-took the lead just 77 seconds before half-time when Towering Toh thumped a clearance deep into their half and powerful Alvin showed his mettle by sprinting clear and easily beat their keeper for a 3-2 half-time lead.

The fans then eagerly awaited the appearance of the 'Spice Girls'. True enough, there were 5 girls appearing but they were actually the wives/girlfriends of ARFC warriors, namely Caren, Su, Jazlyn, Brenda and Josephine!!! The fans then started booing but their boos soon turned to appreciative cheers after hearing the high performance singing and dancing standard from them. At the end of their performance on the song "Wannabe", where the fans were heard singing along "Tell me what you want, what you really really want........"the fans even presented a 77-inch tall bouquet of flowers to each of them.

When play re-start, ARFC then gifted the opponent another equaliser. Kiat Gulam, who had came in at left-back, played a straight ball to their ang-moh striker who shot home from 27 metres.

Again, ARFC threatened with so many chances that the commentators felt that a thrashing was inevitable. Hard-man Tjioe showed he is slowly regaining his touches and thunder shots with a superlative 37 metres pile-driver that was superbly saved by their keeper. The same keeper was to deny influential Sebastiano who similarly drove a 27 meters shot that looked destined for goal until the intervention of the keeper.

Not a team to be giving up, ARFC continued creating chances. In the 67th min, unpredictable Blackburn sent a diagonal ball out to the right to influential Sebastiano who won the race and laid the ball to ARFC scoring legend Haron who took a touch, looked up and curled the ball past their keeper for 4-3 lead.

The opponents then equalised for the 3rd time when their ang-moh striker outpaced our defence and shot home from an acute angle. 4-4 !!

In the post-match session, influential Sebastiano admitted that he had made a tactical blunder by taking off the super-impressive hard-working Tong who was controlling the mid-field with his tackles, closing down and hard-work. Not surprisingly, hard-working Tong won the Man-of-the-Match award and the prize of 77 condoms that come with it.

"Thank you for the prize. I will definitely make full use of the condoms by visiting St. James more often. For the rest of the ARFC warriors who might need it, please feel free to contact me....." enthused hard-working Tong.