Playing under a very good and cool weather on the artificial pitch at 1st Toa Payoh Sec Sch, the scene where ARFC was interviewed by The New Paper for its Weekend Warriors series on 13 Jan 08, ARFC totally dominated proceedings but could only yield a 2-1 victory. The triumph was achieved in front of the usual 77,777 fans which included reliable David’s lovely wife, Dora, and his even lovelier son, Marco; and astute-reading sweeper Elvis’s girlfriend Anna and friends.
Prior to kick-off, ARFC officially welcomed 2 new warriors, dynamic Soon and uncompromising Edwin, into its fold. Both warriors were also treated to loud and warm applauses from the fans for 7 minutes non-stop.
Line-up:
Dependable Jinzhong - Goalkeeper;
Astute-reading sweeper Elvis - Sweeper;
Towering Toh - Stopper;
Left-foot wizard Bernard - Left-back;
Determined Huiming - Right-back;
Influential Sebastian - Central Mid;
Hard-man Tjioe - Central Mid;
Hardworking Tong - Right Mid;
Speedy Hee - Left Mid;
Unpredictable Blackburn - Striker;
ARFC scoring legend Haron - Striker
Subs:
Powerful Alvin
Versatile Kiat
Reliable David
Dynamic Soon
Uncompromising Edwin
ARFC was determined to end its 3-match winless streak and hence it was no surprise that ARFC quickly got off the starting blocks with some explosive attacking display. With both forwards impressing, ARFC created some decent chances but could not make them count. Haron, who had bouts of diahoerrea in the morning, struggled with his shots which were clearly devoid of power. Speedy Hee also left a deep impression with several, well, speedy runs on the left flank.
With almost total domination, it did not shock the audience when ARFC opened the scoring in the 17th min. Haron was fouled yet again and Blackburn shrugged Sebastian aside to take the free-kick. From 27 metres out, Blackburn’s ball appeared to be well-saved by their keeper but he inexplicably dropped the ball. Despite strong protest, the eagle-eyed referee, who had a great match, spotted that the ball had crossed the line and signaled a goal, thereby giving Blackburn’s 66th goal, just 4 more to beat deadly Robin’s tally of 69 goals.
In the 27th min, after a neat exchange of passes with Blackburn, Sebastian sprinted clear and faced their keeper one-on-one. However, he was in two minds on whether to shoot or pass to David, who had embarked a rare sprint all the way into the penalty box, and eventually shot tamely straight at the keeper. With this attempt, Sebastian had illustrated that he would NEVER be as deadly as top-notch strikers like Alvin and Haron.
This waste chance soon came back to haunt ARFC. Off a counter-attack 7 mins later, the opponent leveled the score.
A string of substitutions took place with Kiat, David (came on earlier) and Alvin taking the place of Tjioe, Hee and Haron. In line with ARFC’s tradition, new warriors were not fielded in the first half.
In the 2nd half, Soon and Edwin came on to replace Sebastian and Elvis respectively to show the fans what they are capable of. Indeed, both did not disappoint as they impressed with their pace and intelligence display.
In the 57th min, Soon nearly scored after being put through by Alvin but his shot missed the post by a mere 1.77 inches.
7 mins later, Haron was crudely brought down as he was heading straight at goal, giving the referee no choice but to dismiss the offending defender. Sportingly, ARFC allowed them to replace the sacked player. From the resulting free-kick, Edwin shot well wide after a short lay-off by Blackburn.
ARFC finally regained the lead 7 mins later. Alvin flighted in a delightful corner and up went, who else but Toh to, well, tower above all and thumped in a header for his 25th ARFC goal. His goal had the fans chanting “Toh, Oh, Oh, Oh!!!” non-stop for almost 7 minutes.
In the 77th min came the miss of the season, and possibly the worst since ARFC was founded in 1991. Off Tong’s brilliant through-ball down the right flank, Hee sped off and whipped in a cross that eluded everybody all the way into the 6-yard box. With just 0.0777 inches from the goal line, Alvin somehow managed to scoop the ball over the cross-bar!!!!! This miss mirrored Kanu’s and Rosenthal’s mss for West Brom and Liverpool respectively years back.
ARFC finished strongly and managed to create some more chances but were not converted. Eventually, ARFC held on for a 2-1 victory.
Elvis, Kiat and Man-of-the-Match Toh attended the post-match media conference. Elvis thanked the fans and Anna for their unwavering support and vowed to lose more weight to steer off the competition from Edwin; Kiat also spoke of the fears that either he, Sebastian, Tjioe and Tong would be dislodged by the super-impressive and Mascherano-type midfielder in Soon;
Toh, meanwhile, was ecstatic to have netted the match-winner and dedicated his winning goal to his son Gerrard.
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