Antony Sutton
info@sleague.com
The 2010 S.League season ended in November with the now-ritual self-flagellation we have come to associate with football watchers in the island state.
Bangkok Glass and Etoile FC made sure all the silverware ended up overseas for once, while the late, late departures of Shahril Ishak and Khairul Amri to the riches of the Indonesia Super League and a poor showing at the ASEAN Football Federation Suzuki Cup in Hanoi might suggest all is not well in the Lion City.
But an exciting climactic buildup to the S.League suggests all is not doom and gloom.
In the absence of any promotion or relegation, natural wastage and renewal has become the replacement annual S.League event, where one or two clubs are cropped for any one of a number of colourful reasons, and the excitement surrounding the announcement of new teams matches the hype surrounding Wayne Rooney’s future. Almost.
2011 sees one team, Chinese outfit Beijing Guoan, leaving to be replaced by a familiar face in Tanjong Pagar United, who return after a lengthy spell off the football map.
But while the on-field excitement is almost guaranteed to follow the thrills and spills of recent years, it is off the field where a quiet revolution is bubbling along that could just change the whole S.League matchday experience for fans and players alike.
Three initiatives are looking to open up the rather predictable atmosphere at Singapore football matches by attempting to introduce some pride and passion onto terraces crying out for a huge infusion of soul.
First up, a private company going by the name of Vanda Sports has been hired to inject a matchday experience for the fans of the Young Lions, who currently rely on balloons and a bit of drumming to cheer their boys on. Sounds more like a Christmas party at a fast food restaurant than a football match, and the organisers are hoping that holding home games at Jalan Besar on Saturdays with a 5pm kickoff will be the first step in enticing fans away from their English Premier League fix.
The dream, at least in the medium term, is to recreate the atmosphere that accompanied Singapore back in the late, oft-lamented Malaysia Cup days, and Vanda are promising a number of ideas to keep fans engaged both on matchday and between games.
Whatever your feelings on a pre-packaged atmosphere being parachuted into the S.League by outsiders, and I’m one sceptic repelled by the artificiality surrounding much of the English Premier League, Singapore could well be fertile soil for such an approach to fandom in a box.
Look at Sentosa, for example, with its specially-constructed beaches and stilt houses attracting hundreds of thousands every year. Sometimes these things actually work better than the original.
The other two initiatives are more fan-based, lacking the odour of corporate interference and, at least to this hoary old cynic, have more of a chance of success.
United4United are a group of Singaporean Manchester United fans more used to extolling the virtues of legends like Gary Neville and Arnold Sidebottom than trawling S.League grounds in search of a Bovril, a Wagon Wheel and a matchday programme.
Last season they started following the rather unfashionable Sengkang Punggol, chasing the odd point or three that could help the team avoid the dreaded wooden spoon in Singapore football.
Throughout the latter games of Sengkang’s season, United4United were seen trying to replicate the Old Trafford experience in sultry, tropical Singapore. Given the English Premier League fan demographic, having a bunch of potbellied fortysomethings or day-trippers clutching bagfuls of official club shop garbage is what these enthusiastic young lads had in mind but Sengkang, now renamed Hougang United, can look forward to some vocal support home and away this coming season.
In fine Singaporean style, they have added an entrepreneurial bent to their branding with a range of merchandising that leaves most S.League clubs suitably impressed by the volunteers’ commercial savvy, perhaps even wondering whey they had themselves not been doing the same.
It may be a few years late, but it is a start and, in another nod to local traditions, once they start to get ‘famous’ they are likely to see more members follow the mighty Cheetahs round the country, over land and GRC.
And who knows, we may get fans from other popular EPL teams like Chelsea and Liverpool deciding to adopt their own local team as word spreads that the terraces of your own local team are a far better place to be than a coffee shop with television sets showing a foreign team from a foreign land. Nothing like shared experiences to bond together.
The third and final effort to inspire the Singaporean football public comes from a website called Lions All The Way. The guys behind this particular piece of cyberspace are, in the eyes of cynics, sadness personified, with their trips to and from Changi to wave off or welcome back the Lions on their foreign jaunts.
But sometimes they do even bigger things, like a trip to Hanoi for the Suzuki Cup group games, culminating in their widely cheering faces being shown around Southeast Asia when Singapore scored a goal.
With the Singapore national team not having a good 2010 to remember, it would have been easy to follow the herd and mock the Lions for what it’s worth and more, but the lads at Lions All The Way are sticking by their heroes.
It is never easy to go against the grain in Singapore, so for these guys to lead from the front is something they are to be commended for. Also praiseworthy are their forthright, well-written posts challenging Singaporeans’ self-depreciating preconceptions.
A common whine in Singapore, among so many, is that the atmosphere at games could be better.
Well, now something is being done about it. And if someone has started off doing the hard part, it is high time the rest follow and crank up the volume in the S.League!
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of FAS and the S.League
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