Don't let Dollah Fade Away like an Old Photo

BY CHIA HAN KEONG

I NEVER saw the 'Gelek King' torment defenders with my own eyes.

Yes, by the time football had become an ingrained part of my consciousness, in the mid-1980s, Dollah Kassim had already stopped playing for the Singapore national team.

Indeed, most of the soccer stars of his era - the national team coached by the paternalistic 'Uncle' Choo Seng Quee in the 1970s - were unfamiliar to me.

Even Fandi Ahmad - that talented striker who burst into the national team when he was only 17 - was but a name frequently uttered in hushed tones, as he was plying his trade in Europe then.

Luckily, I had my dad, uncles, older friends and even my PE teachers to recount those glorious years of local football, and the magic of the 'Kallang Roar'.

By the time I entered journalism this decade, I thought I was as familiar with those names as the veteran sports correspondents who filled me in with their fondest memories.

Dollah, Quah Kim Song, Samad Alapitchay, S. Rajagopal - I thought I knew all about them.

So, it was sobering when I was asked this week by a friend 10 years my junior: 'Who is this Gelek King? Have you seen him play? Is he any good?'

Well, he must have been a great dribbler, but I had no memory of his dazzling feats to describe to my friend.

He shrugged nonchalantly at my unsatisfactory answer. After all, he became aware of Dollah only after the veteran collapsed on Sunday while playing football at the Jalan Besar Stadium.

He is still in a coma at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), where he is in a critical but stable condition. He is lucky to be alive as his heart had stopped for about 18 minutes while he was being rushed to hospital, said Dr Dinesh Nair - the surgeon who had tended to him - at a news briefing yesterday in TTSH.

Dollah's sudden heart attack struck like an unpleasant jolt of reality for older fans of Singapore football. They were reminded that their heroes of the 1970s are nearing, or over, their 60s - and feeling their mortality.

However, to the younger generation of fans, footballers like Dollah remain hazy historical figures, with precious few photographs or television footage for them to reminisce over.

It would be a crying shame if these football greats are slowly reduced to faded photos, or murky second-hand memories like mine.

In their heyday, they achieved the incredible feat of filling the 55,000-seat National Stadium - week in, week out. More often than not, they also left 55,000 faces happy for the week.

Let us not allow ourselves to forget football legends like Dollah, as he battles his condition as heroically as he did on the National Stadium pitch.

They deserve a monument in the new Sports Hub.

The old National Stadium may have to be torn down to make way for a new one in the Sports Hub, but this monument will ensure that the sportsmen who enlivened the Grand Old Lady of Kallang are remembered.

Don't merely leave records of their glorious past in musty sports museums - their names deserve a public place.

The British knighted the entire England squad that won the football World Cup in 1966. Northern Ireland renamed its main airport George Best Belfast City Airport after its most famous football talent.

Let's do something to commemorate the footballers who gave their heart and soul to create the Kallang Roar.

While they are still alive.