Eman Manan’s Awang Lah in the movie ‘Wayang’ starts his traditional wayang kulit (shadow play) sessions with the words, “Ble ambo jjalae ble ambo dok pikir..”, which translates into Malay as “Sambil aku berjalan aku berfikir”, and into English as, “While I was walking, I was thinking..”
It was during a walk this very morning, idly biding my time before a 10am appointment that I was thinking about a writing project. In the realm of all things Idlan, projects are nothing new: I start many and complete none. But of late I have managed to buck this trend: Stoodle is more of a reality than just an idea; and the whopper of a PhD finally shifted from harddrive to dusty library shelf in mid 2008. Maybe leaves are turning.
One writing project I’d been itching to start was to follow a local Malaysian football team over the course of a season: attending games, discussing issues and writing up my experiences. This came about in the light of how much I knew about the English game, and how little I was aware of the local game, so much so that I failed to realise one until very recently that one of the Malaysian national team forwards shares a common name with me.
When prodded by friends about why I pay scant attention to the M-League, my excuse is that I have been jaded by the match fixing scandals that rocked, shook and ultimately upturned the football scene in the early 1990s. Not that I was a big fan in those days – my father was never a big football fan so there was no chance of him dragging me along to watch games with him; and even if he was, the fact that I was a girl would have made him overlook me for my younger brothers, of that I am sure. But in those days I knew my Matlan Marjans and my Hashim Mustaphas.
The passion is still there, and I am intrigued at the renewed spirit with which Malaysian football has rejuvenated itself. Part of this may be down to the efforts of reality TV show MyTeam, which made football stars from those who missed the initial boat. Some of the players ‘discovered’ by the show have gone on to don national colours; although whether that is testament to the dire state of Malaysian football more than his brilliance, I am in no position to comment. Sadly, the practicalities of taking a year out and spending it on writing about a football team was not financially nor geographically viable.
But – and this is what dawned upon me as I was walking opposite the Colchester United Club Shop on Sir Isaac’s Walk in the town center – following Colchester United for a year was viable on both counts. The novelty about writing about a Malaysian team was in the setting: the lower trenches of football in a country desperate to be rid of its recent horrible footballing decades and recapturing the glories of Mokhtar Dahari and Soh Chin Aun. The novelty about writing about Colchester United as much in the team as it was in the fan – me: Muslim Malaysian hijaabi from a country better know for hosting Premiership teams pre-season tours.
For the most part of my life, both childhood and adult, I have been a Manchester United fan, and by extension, a football fan. (There are members of my family who are adamant I spent a few years as a youngster supporting Liverpool: I vehemently decry this attempt at slander!) My earliest memory of a football game was the 1982 World Cup, and for as long as I can remember, I have played the game in its various forms: playground, 11-a-side, futsal… many believe football is in my blood. Well, now was the time to put this to the test. Supporting an omnipresent Premiership team laden with stars and given copious amounts of column space is easy. Would my love for the beautiful game extend itself to the lower echelons of the English game? As much as this is my project, a writing exercise of sorts.. it also looks to be an experiment in assessing the core of my footballing soul; a trek into depths I’ve never really taken time to prod; a journey into the semi-unknown.
Walk with me. And in about 9 months from today, let’s see if I am indeed the football junkie I thought myself to be.
My Colchester United Year 