penang trip

It may have been a cold, windy morning on the other side of the earth but for us, it was hot and sunny as the under 15 football teams, both boys and girls arrived at school to head to Penang. Our young souls then had to withstand a 7 hour journey to Penang, making stops only to buy pints of ice-cream and other fatty foods. As we neared our homes for the night, back seat romances began to emerge and even thoughts of romances began to emerge as the bus now had to plough its way through the rain. It was 9 o’clock and were thinking to ourselves, “Aren’t we supposed to be there yet?”, only to find out we were parked outside a Chinese restaurant asking for directions. By 9.30 we were at Dalat International School and were selected by the judges into which home we stayed in. Some of us were lucky enough to stay in houses with huge plasma TV’s while others had to sleep on the floor with only a sheet as a blanket. The next morning we all gathered back at the school and taunted the people who managed to get the house with the huge plasma TV. Putting our ‘luck’ behind us we boarded the bus...again and headed to the Penang free school, where we were to play out football tournament. We all got warmed up and by 8 o’clock we were on the field and ready to play. We faced Dalat International in our first game. It was a grueling match as both teams tussled for the ball and maneuvered through the ground, but by the end of the hour and the game, both teams were at a stalemate, 0-0. Out second game was soon after, in fact 5 minutes after as we again had to carry our exhausted body onto the field and play against a local Chinese school, Chung Ling. We shook hands and again began playing football again, this time we scored (WOOHOO!!). It was a beautiful goal by Leslie Tiong, and that goal lifted our spirits., only to be compressed into a small speck of sand when they equalized. Everything then went downhill but we held on and managed a 1-1 draw. As we sat there waiting for the next result which destined whether we got into the semi-finals or not, we as young adults had to show our maturity, so we begged out coaches to take us McDonalds, including phrases such as “PLEASE” and “IT’S NOT THAT FAR”. But even though we begged and begged they just sat there eating their McDonald’s, basically taunting us which the chugged through their Big Mac’s. When we found out we were in the semi’s we were delighted but when the time came, we really weren’t that happy. Our muscles were aching, out bodies were in pain and all our stuff was wet. We couldn’t really do much but we did what we paid to do, play football in Penang. We got on and played another local side, Mutiara. Halfway through the match, while they were 4-0 up, we had to stop and sit on the field as a Malay prayer was going on, the ‘Azan’ but after 20 minutes we were back up on our feet and began playing what we called football again. During half-time our version of Alex Ferguson gave us a team talk and how we should organize our defense and all sorts. During the halftime interval, he must have done something to his voice as when we got back onto the field, we were suddenly a new team, 5-0 down we got back and scored 5-1. Our magical backline then stopped everything that was thrown at them. The line was held so beautifully that nothing was even played in our half of the field. Then another enchantment took place. It was a beautiful pass from Magnus to Philippe and then Philippe attempted a cross which as almost Beckham like, but was stopped by the hand of a frustrated Malay defender. As Ashman, our ‘thunderbolt kicker’ was a substitute, it was left to one man, ‘’ to step up to engage in a beautiful set piece, which was soon to make him the most ‘perasan’ person for the next hour. He instructed a fellow teammate, Sam to fake the kick while he then took the free kick, and when the time came, Sam faked the ball so beautifully, it was almost like the brand Niki (Must Do it), it was so fake that the entire Mutiara defense jumped up and this allowed, ‘him’ to take the kick while they were on their way down. ‘He’ then stared his run up, while anxious eyes watched him. It was almost like the world was his for that one moment when he managed to perfect his kick over the wall and into the very top corner of the goal. ‘He’ had stolen a page from the Thunderbolt’s play book. 5-2 the score ended as we walked of the field cheerless, but for ‘him’ it was a exultant a day as ever. As we lost the game we had to play another team for 3rd and 4th playoff. We were up against the 3rd local team, Georgetown, but since we were behind schedule, we were only allowed to play Twenty minutes instead of the usual Sixty. This was when it stared to rain, it rained really heavily but then turned into a slight drizzle which we then played in. We played so well and managed to win this time, 4-1. We then changed and got on the bus and headed to McDonalds, our final destination in Penang. We must have paid their building rent as our entire bus was now filled with the sweet smell of nuggets, fries and burgers. On our way back, several people were sleeping or clutching to their head as the after pain from heading the rock solid ball was staring to kick in. The back seat romances started again, and for a brief moment Mr. Wellington was dancing to some techno music. The smell of deodorant filled the air as we were not allowed to shower on the way back, and McDonald rubbish could be spotted by just looking down on the floor. But by 10pm we were back home in KL, and our trip to Penang ended.