The Football Chronicles of St Joe

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This is starting to get very interesting. I was sitting quietly at a cafe in Ho Chi Minh City airport waiting for my flight to Singapore when I received this email from Edmund Lee, together with the following photo. I just had to post it up immediately. Apologies for any typos (which I will correct later) ...

Standing (L to R)

Cikgu Bujang Hadi (Coach/Manager), Joseph Jinggut (Captain - Midfield), Steven "Ferrari" Joseph (winger), Dublin "Iron-man" Unting (Full-back), John Dawi (reserve), Mathew Chin (with specs, partly hidden - reserve), Morshidi "Steady" Gani (full-back), Jonathan "Striker" Nanang (Centre-forward), Sudarsono "long-man" Osman (Centre-Back), Rev Bro Columba.

Front Row

 Abdul Rahim (reserve), Abdillah "speedy" Adam ( Winger ), Dennis "Gordon Banks" Liew (Goalkeeper), Awang Abdullah (left back), Osman Abdul Rani (Mid-field), Soedirman Aini (forward)

Excerpt of Edmund's email follows ...

"... follow-up on the chance-meeting with Cikgu Bujang and posting on our School's Football Teams of the '70s, especially the Team of 1973 which spearheaded St. Joseph's School dominance in the Inter-School Football arena - Champions for 3 consecutive years, 1973, 74 and 75.

Cikgu met up with a few of us this morning over breakfast and what was initially thought of as a short & quick meeting carried through for another two hours.....with Cikgu sharing nostalgic memories of life in the heydays of St. Joseph's.

What was even more impressive was that Cikgu told us that he spent more time in school than at home - from his normal teaching routine to the much-looked-forward-to training on the football pitch. He mentioned that his greatest challenge was not the lack of players but the sadness in excluding some potenially good and committed students from the team because he could only register 16 players. Such was the pool of talent available and the enthusiasm of these students to don the school colours...that's St. Joseph's.

And Cikgu also shared a very touching, yet interesting part of his personal life....his marriage. His wedding party, to be more precise. We were astounded when he mentioned that his best man was a CHINESE ! Yes, a Chinese as a best man in a Malay wedding !! Would you believe that ? And that Chinese best man was non other than his buddy and colleague - Mr. Anthony Goh, our school's renowned athletics coach extra-ordinaire.That's REALLY 1Msia - a Christian Chinese as best man at a Muslim friend's wedding !

Unfortunately, Cikgu was unable to produce a photograph of that "historic" occasion, as the best man was too busy ushering the guests. (multi-tasking, I guess ) 

Kudos, Cikgu for your magnanimity and humility. No wonder you were ( and still are ) held in such high regard and respect among the students during your tenure in St. Joseph's.

Back to the Team photo - the famous sons of 1973 ...

For the record, the Team beat our arch-rivals St. Thomas' School 2-0 in the replayed final match. The first match ended in a stale-mate. ( 1-1 )

Let's hear it from some of our brother Josephians who were there when it happened....be it in school or during the tournament itself.

Do we still recall the Monday school assemblies when Bro Columba presented trophies or awards for achievements ? Were you one of the lucky few who were priviledged enough to walk up those steps to the stage to receive your awards?

The feeling must be "out of this world" as fellow school-mates gave you an ovation when your name was announced. That's the spirit inculcated in us and the environment that we went through - regular bonding and a great camaraderie among this band of brothers. We ate, we talked, we slept, we dressed "St. Joseph's" That distinguished us from other schools - we had "THE JOSEPHIAN SPIRIT"   "Ora Et Labora"

Cheers and have a Great and Blessed Weekend."

Thanks Edmund. This third report seals your reputation as the "Football Correspondent" for the Josephians of the Seventies blog. I have no doubt this is just the start of the "Football Chronicles"....
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Chance Meeting with Cikgu Bujang - Part 2

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After all that football talk with Cikgu Bujang, Edmund went ahead to search for photos of the football heroes from that 1973 Inter-School Champion team.. He wrote in his email ...

"Saw this photo in one of the blogs and thought it would be most appropriate to put a face to the names of 4 of our football heroes who brought glory to our Alma Mater .... but don't know why Bro Columba was more concerned with brushing his hair than looking at the camera !

Joseph Jinggut (Captain of the victorious team & brother of Datuk Justin Jinggut )

Dennis Liew or "Gordon Banks" as he was nick-named ..... only let in 2 goals throughout the entire tournament (according to Cikgu Bujang) - lost contact with him since then.

Abdillah Adam - (Pengarah, Institut Pendidikan Guru Malaysia Kampus Batu Lintang)

Abdul Rahim Colex - ( ED/CEO of CMS Cement S/B, brother of Sazali Abdul Rani, Class of 75 )

Hope some of our Seniors will read this and assist to fill in the remaining names and hopefully provide us with the photographs to complete the story ...

Cikgu mentioned that everyone was so excited about the victory that they forgot to take photographs. All he had were memories in his head. But I would rather think that cameras were a luxury in those days and not easily available. Now...we have camera phones...affordable cameras...how blessed are we ! 

I was also told that one of our seniors - Chang Kuo Cheh - had scanned the old copies of the Ad Astra and posted them on his webpage. But I was unable to find it.....can anyone help on this ? - he's the elder brother of Robert Chang (Class of 76)

Hope more news/photos will come our way as we try to re-connect Josephians from around the globe.

Over to you, WSJ and thanks for another great effort."

Most welcome, Edmund. Thank YOU for the info and photo.

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Chance Meeting with Cikgu Bujang

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I received a note and some photos from Edmund Lee (Form 5, 1975) earlier today. Here's an excerpt ...

"Chance meeting with Cikgu Bujang....of all places....at a Chinese coffeeshop at Green Road... He was passing by to meet a friend when we noticed him...and invited him to join us for a cup of coffee....

As usual, Cikgu was his jovial and casual self......until we mentioned about football......and he went to great lengths to introduce our school's "who's who" in the famous Teams of 1973 & 1974........

Names and events flowed easily from his lips as he could vividly recall every detail....from Team strategies / preparation to opponents and players. He could name each and every of the Team players with ease....not bad for a 65 year old man. (he retired in 1999).

By the way, Cikgu's favourite EPL Team is Liverpool. Mine's Arsenal.

There were some things that were not known to us....for example....our players even trained on Sundays !...yes Sundays....doing weights and rigourous endurance work-outs.

For the infor of those who are less sports-inclined, St Joseph's were champions in football in 1973 & 1974.......beating our arch-rivals St. Thomas' 2-0 (first match ended 1-1) in 1973 and Dragon School 1-0 ( in 1974 ) I was there for all three matches which were played at the Jubilee Ground. I'll try to get more photos on these two matches.

Cheers and happy holidays "

Photo 1 (20 Nov 2010, morning)

Photo 2 (20 Nov 2010, morning)

From left to right: Chi Ted Fah (Form 5, 1978), Cikgu Bujang, Edmund Lee (Form 5, 1975), Nicholas Ong (Form 5, 1975) and Nicholas Chin (Form 5, 1977)

Thanks very much for the update, Edmund. Look forward to more photographs, if you find them.

And that applies to ALL of you ... if you find old photographs that depict the good old days when we were at St Joe, do scan them, send them to me (jslyong@hotmail.com) and I'll share them with all our friends on the blog.
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