RAIN UNITED
FOOTBALL CLUB
[ KUKUP TRIP ]
We assembled outside the Choa Chu Kang Stadium on 26th July 2008 @ 0800 hrs and boarded the Malaysian coach and left soon after for our trip to Kukup.
Entering Johor through the first link, we arrived Kukup at 1230 pm. We proceeded for our lunch before we went checked into our accomodations. Given 4 bedrooms with 7 beds each, we divided ourselves with the fathers housed into one room, the boys in another and families with the rest.
The boys were able to accomodate themselves fastest while they were seen running around the arena familiarising themselves with the living lifestyles of the locals, the environment of living in Kelong as well as the curiosity of seeing mud-skippers, fishes all around the low-tide waters. They were hooking up their nets soon; with safety compliances that were briefed to them before that. They were pairs in group of 10 with a partner each to look after to.
While we were resting from the morning wakey and the long wait at the customs check-point, the mummys' played a short game of mahjong, while snacks were served.
We prepared ourselves at 1530 hrs, got ourselves changed and walked out to the main kampong road, where the host football team took their van and car and gave us a lift to the football pitch. We were to play our football game against the Johor Malaysian Chinese Association at 1700hrs.
Prior to the game, the host had contacted me the night before and had informed me that they were planning to put up a decent team making up from the combined MCA players from the 3 joints in Pontian.
I had proceeded to fill in a combined team making up from the bonding pairs of friends, daddy and sons' with our line-up reading :-
Nelson / Jeremy / Justin
Ray / Adriel / Keefe
Jeffrey / Ashton / Brenden
Sabastian / Lionel
Javier / Gerald & parents
Syakir / Syamir & parents
Ashraff, Haziq, Razzali & enterprises
Lloyd & family
Kazi & friends
Roger & family
I briefed the intentions on the objectives of the game and deployed the daddys' to give the boys the exposure with our guidance and carried out the game plan to play our opponents. The mummys', daughters' and non-playing parents gave us the extra support with their encouragements. The results of the game were inmaterialized. We guided the boys with our warm-ups, gave them our debriefed and had led ourselves in approaching our opponents in demonstrating our appreciations to them before and after the game, with our extended warmed hand shake, parents / kids / families photo takings to exchanging a friendship banner and group photo takings as gesture of goodwill. Jeremy was given the captain's armband to lead the team.
At the end of the game, the president of the MCA team came by and congratulated us. With all due respect from his sincere comments, he had initially thought that his team would have an easy run when he saw our line up and had commented that we had displayed the group parenting / kids strong bonding on / off the playing field, which filled his team, the friends and supporters with envious emotions. He was overly impressed with the guidance given from our adults while playing against them and the skills, maturity of the boys while taking them on. I will be proud to record Lionel's goal, who has scored his first senior goal with a super long range drive where the keeper commented that he did not thought the ball would have gone into goal and had stood studded when it flown in.
We also thanked the MCA team for giving us the fairest play and had given the boys a chance to play their game with fewer tackles. As gesture of goodwill, I have invited them to join us for our BBQ dinner that night.
We gathered the team together, got the daddys and mummys to give our boys our heartfelt hugs, handshakes and congratulated our team for the wonderful game that has given us so much to champion for; the memories, the teamwork, the wonderful support from all, the good spirit of our winning attitude. All of us throughly enjoyed the 2 hours football friendly with so much that we have learnt. The boys were eagerly looking forward to more football games like this as much as the adults and supporting parents do.
Shortly when we went back, we headed straight to the backyard of the Kelong for our seafood BBQ dinner. While enjoying our food, there were displayed of fireworks while we tucked ourselves with enjoyable conversations and beers. No English songs for Razzali and Jeffrey who had "willingly" wanted to sing and dance for us when we were trying to sort out a parent's name correctly while we were making our journey from Singapore earlier on.
I dished out a surprise and had invited Haziq and our captain Jeremy with a pre-ordred cake and celebrated their birthdays' on this night. The group got together and sang them birthday songs with friends from the MCA team and others from different holidaying groups.
The blessings of the moonlight and the calm sea waters makes it an enlightening get-together evening.
Some of us sat till the early hours the next day chit-chatting with our snacks and beers, while the boys make use of their rare occasion to stay the night away. We got to know one another better sharing our after drinks conversations.
The next morning, we were up early and enjoyed the morning cloudy sun with our breakfast. We soon packed ourselves and got our scheduled timely with early shoppings, seafood lunch and make our way back to Singapore. We eventually got home home at 1700 hrs. We were all weary but we enjoyed ourselves.
The host from the MCA team contacted us once again and were happy to hear of our well-being and safed returned trip home. On behalf of all, may I thank you for making this trip memorable. I thoroughly enjoyed myself very much and it took me 2 days to digest the fatigue and beers inside me. The trip would not have been succesful without you.
The 17 of us took on to the National Stadium the next evening and met up for the game between the Singapore Selections and the Brasil Olympics U23 team. Another fun night, the rare opportunity in witnessing Ronaldinho and team playing their warm-up match on route to the Beijing Olympics.
In the meantime, I will hand all a CD copy of the photographs taken during our Kukup trip when we meet again in our next match at Mayflower Secondary School on 10th August 2008.
Cheers
.