Football Fever

One of the first questions I was asked in my very first press conference in Malaysia was “Which EPL team do you support?”  - I worked out pretty quickly that Malaysians are crazy about football (watching it rather than playing it!).  It is an essential part of my daily browsing of the local press to read the football pages.  Otherwise I would get caught out regularly.  I remember one very senior Malaysian asking me well into last season: “What is the difference between Tottenham Hotspur and a triangle?”  The answer: “A triangle has three points!”   (Spurs are of course now in a much better position in the league!)

As pretty much every Malaysian knows, the World Cup is to be held in South Africa this summer.  I was fascinated to learn recently that the cup itself, known as the Jules Rimet Trophy, was going to be on display at Mid Valley Mall.  So I and some of my colleagues went along to see it for ourselves.  I decided to really get into the spirit of things by wearing the official England shirt and also took a scarf promoting England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

Even though we had arrived fairly early in the day, hundreds of Malaysian football fans were there.   Before we could get anywhere near the trophy, we wandered past lots of stalls and a stand by Rally International particularly caught my eye. They are a UK charity that brings young people out from Britain to undertake development work in Sabah.  Football training is one of the areas they work in, but their main focus is on helping with rural projects such as providing clean water.  They also work with Yayasan Sabah on environmental projects, such as the building of a rehabilitation centre for sun bears at Sepilok.

 

Walking further on, we came accross a fantastic 3-D film all about the history of the World Cup, with grainy footage of past finals.  Finally, we reached our goal.  Standing in front of us, in a glass case and heavily protected by security, was the World Cup!  Everyone had a chance to have a photo taken.  Mine was, of course, with my England bid scarf!  It was quite a treat to know that I was right beside the trophy that had been raised in victory by famous players like Bobby Moore (England), Franz Beckenbauer (Germany) and Zinedine Zidane (France) and Pele (Brazil).

The only time England won the World Cup was in 1966, when the tournament was played on home soil.  Bobby Moore (later “Sir Bobby”) was the captain and Geoff Hurst scored a memorable hat-trick.  One of my boyhood heroes, Bobby Charlton (now “Sir Bobby”) was one of the stars.  And I had a chance to meet him a few months ago, when he visited Kuala Lumpur with Manchester United.  What a pleasure that was!

I’ll be interested to see this summer how many Malaysians will be backing England to win the Cup.  I suspect quite a lot!!!