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Glory days!

Wow! Malaysia beat Australia 3-2 in extra time after being a goal down twice in the recently ended Sultan of Johor Cup junior hockey tournament. En route to the final clash, Malaysia in the early rounds lost to Australia initially. They went on to beat teams like South Korea, Pakistan and India with convincing margins.
I am sure all the teams sent for the tournament must have been their second, third or fourth stringers. It still feels good though. Just like England's soccer team must be on cloud nine after beating Spain's B-team 1-0 in the friendlies yesterday. They must be thinking that they have won the World Cup especially after also winning the right to wear the poppy flower after the fiasco with FIFA recently.
Back in 1975, when I was Standard 6, the most happening event of the year in Malaysia was our hosting of the Hockey World Cup. Heavyweights of those days, Pakistan, India, West Germany, Netherlands and others were there in this extravaganza. Our class master, Mr Chan Teik Huat, took it upon himself to set up powerful sound system (Toshiba Bomb Beat or something like that) in our classroom for us to listen to the live telecast of Malaysian games on the radio. In spite of being devoid of visual stimulation, we could actually feel every dribble, every pass, every fall, every miss and disappointment felt by the spectators in the field. Our team achieved its highest achievement to date by capturing the fourth spot. 1975 was also the year when the big mouthed 'Fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee' Muhammad Ali came to town. In those days, every heavyweight boxing match was a fiesta. Malaysians of all walks of life watched the match live on Malaysian TV and work generally came to a standstill and the dual lane highway was empty. One acquaintance took 6 hours to drive from KL to Kota Bahru at that time! It used to be like this for all boxing matches until Ali retired. Mr Chan brought in a TV set us to watch Ali encounter with Joe Bugner where Ali won by points.
Then an era ended.......

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