Hit The Road, Jacks!

Thursday 12th October 2006

Singapore vs. Iraq.

What can I say?

It began like this....



...but it did not end like that.

Let's just say, at the end of it all, us Singaporeans looked on the bright side and concluded that we were happy that we made the Iraqis happy last night. I mean, in case you didn't notice...ermm...unhappy Iraqis doth not a Disney movie make? And hey, it was surprising and heartening to see that there were more than six of us Singaporeans yesterday. Even though the cheery Iraqis nearly filled up half the stadium and we filled up nearly a tenth of the...erm...grandstand, I hardly ever felt prouder when I sang the national anthem before kickoff, hokay?! Even Abang Zack turned up with his posse, despite it being the kids' school night and his birthday. There we were, all prepared to be like a bunch of cheering smurfs in the sea of Iraqis, with our red and white clappers and semut voices and suddenly, out popped at least three more Singporean families, with kids in tow, to add power to the numbers.

-And can I just say, Aide Iskandar (whom Sadin once lovingly called MukaTomato) just gets cuter as he gets older?-

Anyway, even though the match did not have a favourable outcome for Singapore, let's give one for the boys. Well, one for our hardy Singapore boys ....



and one for our happy Singapore Dubai boys.....





...who started and ended the road trip with much excitement, enthusiasm and energy to support our Singapore boys. They were uncharacteristically patriotic and I was so proud to see some kind of national pride in them, especially in my darling husband, who normally remains deadpan and apathetic to many things Singaporean.

And the girls?

Well, one wife had a flight (Rashid's wife, Lin), one wife does not exist yet (Amir's wife...erm...unnamed..so girls, Amir is single!!) and so only two wives were on the roadtrip...



....but our reasons to be there were a little bit different from our boys. I mean, Rainy's reason to come on this roadtrip to watch the match was to accompany me and I must admit, my reason to go on this road trip was to relive some good ol' memories and size up the upsized calves and upjacked butts most footballers seem to cultivate on their beings. Not that my Azim takde nie semua laah, he does but...alaah sayang my honey Azim babushuknya....you know you're my one and only man kan?! Heh.

Serously, I wanted to watch this match to somehow remember my late father. It was him who used to drag me to all those Malaysia cup matches (even all the way out to Merdeka Stadium, Stadium Shah Alam and all tau!!) and tried to korek a football fan out of me. He would explain to me who is who (Abbas Saad and Alistair Edwards were not the same person), what is what (freekick does not mean I nor anyone of the spectators can freely have a go and kick the ball on the field) and where is where (the playing area for the footballers ends where the white lines are drawn....not at the stadium entrance). He would make me clad myself in red and white (I had a pair of red Guess jeans, for the love of LKY!). Yes...he loved football with a passion (Siti Nurhaliza pon kalah here ok!). He suceeded in converting me into a football fan, somewhat. Or wait....does footballer fan count? One particular footballer? Yes..I was a fan of one particular footballer then. Siapa yang tak tahu dan nak tahu, I was in love with Nazri Nasir. Big fan. In love. Nak kahwin punya love ah dulu!! Nevermind that he was 25 and I was 15. Nevermind that he had uber-hot, fair-skinned kuniang SIA stewardess girlfriend whom he eventually married and would never ever ever take a second glance at hockey-tanned-teenager-tomboy-with-glasses-that-look-like-TV-screens ol' Raihan Slenger. Nevermind that my mother will skin my brown ass alive should I really confirm nak kahwin when I was 15, if by some demented braindead moment, Nazri Nasir dumped hot SIA girl for tak-hot-langsong CGS girl. Nevermind all that. I still had hope. I was in love. (Note the past tense ah?! )

Nevermind. :P

Anyway, whatever our reasons were to go tripping, we had fun. So much fun. Too much fun, I actually felt guilty.....this time being Ramadan and all that abstinence being clearly absent as I cheered myself hoarse, laughed myself happy and jiggy-ed myself silly.



Thanks a bunch, boys and..uhh...girl!



PS: More pics will be up once I get my voice and sanity back. Bah.