Masters of Football


To celebrate the birth of a friend’s second child, a mob of us men went to a football match, because that’s how men express their emotions. This wasn’t just any match though: this was Masters Football. (That was something drummed into us throughout the match by the commentator.) Sadly, Masters football isn’t a demonstration by people who have a mastery of the game. It’s old men, strolling around on the pitch for 80 minutes.

To be fair, the likes of Ian Rush are probably a bit envious of the ludicrous pay packets that modern footballers receive. It would be churlish to deny them the chance to fly to Singapore on business class, be put up in the Marriott Tang Hotel and be driven around town in a Porsche (as the commentator kept telling us), just because forty- and fifty-year old men aren’t well suited to playing a strenuous sport in tropical conditions that they’re not at all used to. Everyone deserves a bit of a bump.

This was my first time at the Singapore National Stadium, and it’s perhaps not the best venue for a football match, no matter how nice it is. Because there’s a running track, the pitch is a lot further from the stands than in a conventional football stadium. Everything’s incredibly clean and tidy and air conditioned, but it’s just too polite. (This may be my prejudices – I’m convinced that a normal football match in the UK should be accompanied by 90 minutes of people shouting “you’re shit” over and over again – how could Singapore compete?) Occasionally, the commentator would tell everyone to make some noise. Dutifully, everyone made some noise. And then stopped again.

Not that they needed to shout, when the entire match was soundtracked by dodgy 90s music. I’m pretty sure they had a tape loop of Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap that they couldn’t stop playing. The match itself was played at a languid pace, for only 40 minutes per half rather than a full 45, and I craned my head and tried to make out people I didn’t care about participating in a sport where I had no emotional involvement. And I drank rather too much beer.

Perhaps to keep everyone happy, the two teams were drawn from ex-Manchester United and Liverpool players, so whatever the result, you could say the Reds won. I suppose it was a triumph for Castlewood Entertainment, who had organised the whole thing. Well, the commentator kept telling us Castlewood Entertainment had organised it. I suppose they were assuming there might be some repeat business – maybe I could book Eric Cantona to come to my daughter’s third birthday party next year and not kick a ball around very much?

Since Chelsea weren’t playing I couldn’t use my usual occult influence to decide the match – Liverpool ended winning 2-0 after not much happened.

AFterwards, we hiked to the closest MRT station and then went into town, to drink more beer. Beer without end, almost, at a half-empty English theme pub (and what a strange concept that is, all red post boxes and gloominess before we went to a dreadful bar full of drunks (actually, that was probably our fault, not anyone else’s) and then to a godawful dive filled with ladies of negotiable virtue and a pool table. What more appropriate way to celebrate a child’s birth?


3 responses to “Masters of Football”

    • It really was Ian Rush. I have photographic evidence. Well, a photo of a man with a number 9 shirt and white hair, a very long way away…

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