Happy Tay, Brian Richmond Interview Pele In Singapore Part 6

PEPE PASSED AWAY: 29 DECEMBER 2022. RIP DEAR SIR!

A 1960's Singapore Football Memory Trail:

Happy Tay was in Singapore some weeks ago after braving the 20-hour plus long haul from Vancouver  to visit Red Dot again. Also known as Vancouver's Elvis Presley, I managed to meet this very tall, talented, generous good-looker over a cup of tea at Ah Teng's Coffee House @ Raffles Hotel.  He has been unselfishly contributing many stories to the blog. 

Here's another informative and nostalgic letter from Happy for all ardent football fans and sports historians.  Again my thanks to him.

*Elvis - You'll Never Walk Alone -  A Soccer Song from the 1960's.

Dear Andy,

The first photo shows our Police Football Team from Police Training School (PTS), later known as Police Academy, that beat the Army Depot Police (ADP) in the Inter-Police Cup Final in 1968.

We were then the underdogs, as the ADP (British Army Depot Police) had several players representing the National Football Team.

Some of their Singapore National star footballers were, Mohd. Ali (full-back), Sahar Hussein (forward), Ow Siew Kong (forward). Ow was selected by the visiting British Football Team in later years, to represent their All-Stars Team touring Asia.

Then there's Hussein Hashim (mid-field), Idros Albar (goalkeeper), and a few others whose names I am not able to recall. The Army Depot Police back then employed footballers who have, or are, representing the National Football Team, to represent their team.

However, not to be outdone, the Police team back then, also had several national and youth footballers too. Our national team was a good mixture of youths and senior football stars like Wilfred Skinner (image left: goalkeeper / forward), Robin Chan (forward), Gurunathan (forward). 

Included in the same group was Brian Richmond (Youth Team Captain and National Team Reserves), Othman Bahrum (forward for Malays and Reserves), Yee Soh Peng (Chinese), Richard Chiam (Youth Team) and yours truly (Youth Team).

The final itself which was played at Police Training School was filled with excitement, and was indeed an epic final, with all the top footballers from the country involved. It ended with the Police Football team victorious with the score at three two.

 I vividly remembered that we footballers were accommodated at the Police Training School for two weeks before the finals and had daily training  in the morning and evening under the football coach from Bulgaria, who was also, the National Team coach. I cannot recall his name. 

We were all well fed, and taken care of under the direction of the then Commandant of the Police Training School, AC Ong Kim Boon, and his deputy, DSP Daljit Singh.  I was then an Instructor at the Police Training School and extremely fit with  my position as a fullback!

This second photo on the left was taken during an interview with Pele - Edson Arantes dos Nascimento - the greatest footballer in the world and a living legend (image: standing/centre). 

The interview was conducted by our team of reporters from Sports Parade from Radio and Television Singapore (RTS) then. 

Some of the personalities in the photo were Brian Richmond (image: standing with Pele), then anchor and commentator of the very popular programme, Sports Parade, aired on TV every Friday evening. There were Ow Siew Kong, another team member and Singapore National Team player and yours truly (image: sitting/tie) , who was then, also one of the sports reporter.

It was truly a memorable meeting with this great football legend, who was then visiting Singapore with the Santos Football Team from Brazil in early 1970's.

Well Andy, I hope that this short introduction has managed to recap the best of my "fading" memories.

Cheers,

Happy Tay.

Vancouver, BC, Canada.

NB: If you are familiar with these footballers and friends do write in to contribute.

*The song is popular with football clubs around the world, where it is performed by mass supporters on match day. This practice traditionally began at Liverpool Football Club in the early 1960's and later spread on...

Images from Happy Tay (Copyrights Reserved); Google.

Click connection to read Happy's articles:

http://singapore60smusic.blogspot.sg/search/label/Happy%20Tay%20Postings

Gerry and The Pacemakers Version