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By Suresh Nair

FACT or fiction, Tuesday will be a moment of truth for Singapore football fans as a rousing attempt is made to bring back the revered ‘Kallang Roar’ of the 1970s.

On the menu is the tantalising Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup Group ‘E’ match where Tampines Rovers take on Malaysian giant Selangor in a must-win-at-all-cost clash at the ultra-modern S$1.33 billion SportsHub at Kallang.

Yes, you can feel the goose-bumps as it is the first time a local club is playing at the 55,000-seat venue since it re-opened its doors in 2014. (For the record, Tampines were also the last local club to play a competitive match at the old 1973-built National Stadium, when they beat Thai side Chonburi 3-2 to lift the Singapore Cup in front of 18,000 fans in November 2006).

The critics say the ‘Kallang Roar’ is a thing of the past. There are a few reasons for this assertion. The demolition of the old National Staidum and the decline of the state of local football are a few street-talk arguments. Prima facie, this does seem to be true.

Oh, the famous ‘Roar’. The younger generation probably never got a taste of the magical ‘Roar’ – that mythical creature of the National Stadium that young Singaporeans grow up hearing about but never quite got to experience first-hand. (Again, for the record, ‘Kallang Roar’ was coined by former The New Paper  Sports Editor Jeffrey Low on April 18, 1976, after Singapore beat Penang 5-4 in a Malaysia Cup match that saw 60,000 packed into the 55,000-capacity National Stadium. It has gone on to be synonymous with Singapore football over the decades).

Come Tuesday, it’s like a do-or-die match for Singapore’s most famous club, who boast former England and Liverpool striker Jermaine Pennant and Asian-ranked goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud in their star-spangled line-up, and without a doubt, need to beat Selangor to qualify for the knockout stages of the AFC Cup.

REVENGE ON SELANGOR MIND

Much as (coach) V. Sundramoorthy’s men triumphed, rather surprisingly, 1-0 at the Selayang Stadium in Kuala Lumpur in the reverse fixture on May 8, this match will be a mouth-watering revenge clash for (Selangor coach) Zainal Abidin Hassan. (Ironically, the two coaches were fiery rivals at the height of the ‘Roar’ in the 1980s)

Now look at the pre-match cards with absolutely no compromises: Only one game left, the Stags are third with seven points, one behind Selangor and two behind leaders Ceres of the Philippines. Only the top two teams qualify for the next stage.

The man behind the daring gesture to play at the SportsHub is Tampines chairman Krishna Ramachandra, who has mesmerised football since he took over the No 1 spot from the much-revered Teo Hock Seng.

Krishna, one of the leading corporate lawyers as Managing Director of Duane Morris & Selvam LLP in Singapore and of Selvam & Partners LLC in Myanmar, and hailed as the modern-version of the late Nadesan ‘Kallang Roar’ Ganesan, is vivid on his longer-term goals: He hopes this long-awaited match will evoke memories of the intense Singapore-Selangor rivalry of the late 1970s and 80s, when the likes of Samad Allapitchay, Dollah Kassim, S. Rajagopal, Quah Kim Song and Fandi Ahmad went head to head against Mokhtar Dahari, Soh Chin Aun, Santokh Singh, Hassan Sani and R. Aruguman.

(To make a loudest point, Ganesan, the Singapore football icon in the late ’70s and ’80s, who died in July last year, helmed the FAS from 1974 to 1981, a period that saw Singapore win two Malaysia Cups (1977 and 1980). The ‘Kallang Roar’ was born after he decided in 1974 to switch Malaysia Cup home games from the 6,000-capacity Jalan Besar Stadium to the National Stadium – creating a 60,000-strong cauldron of noise!)

‘MR ROAR’ NADESAN GANESAN

Even former Lions legendary striker Quah Kim Song praised “Mr Roar”: “People were sceptical over whether the stadium could be filled but Ganesan took the daring plunge. It was ‘do-or-die’ for him. We are forever indebted to him for kick-starting a golden period of Singapore football. Passionate, gutsy and knowledgable football men like him are very hard to come by these days.”

Indeed, national pride is at stake, too, on Tuesday, as most of the Singapore national players are playing, and it goes beyond Tampines Rovers, and in Krishna’s words “it’s a chance of a lifetime to try and revive the ‘Kallang Roar’”.

He said: “I would love to see a lot of cheering, shouting and standing up at key moments, no matter how comfortable the stadiums seats are. Our players need the ‘12th man’ for this game and I hope the fans step up.”

Even Football Association of Singapore (FAS) president Zainudin Nordin is livid in his views and says it is a matter of re-igniting the fire. “When the old National Stadium was built in the ’70s, people also asked the same question: How to fill the seats. Well, we did, thanks to the Malaysia Cup and a strong Singapore national team. There is no question that only a strong and successful national team can bring in the crowd.

“We must be fair to the paying Singapore football fans. They must have a reason to come to the stadium and we at FAS are aware a national team that is performing well can be the decisive factor in igniting that passion in the Singapore football fans again.”

‘12TH MAN’ FACTOR

The very BIG question: Will we really hear the big roars or will the ‘Kallang Roar’ still remain a mythical creature for now.

I sincerely wish it returns for the extra advantage of the “12th Man” where the rip-roaring cheers can make a world of a difference. But I’ve to touch my heart and say that in present-day environment, it will be an uphill task, simply because for a weekday match, the 90-minute tie will be flashed LIVE over television and that may be a potential kill-joy to this match, where Krishna Ramachandran is expecting 25,000 – just half the SportsHub capacity.

Yes, Singapore really needs the “winning touch” to give football the shot-in-the-arm it deserves. And, here’s a cracker-of-a-match that may make dreams come true.

The stakes are very high. The onus will be on big-spending and forward-thinking Tampines Rovers to win on Tuesday, failing which it’ll be the instant boot out of the AFC Cup quarter-finals…and more importantly, a bigger dent to the long overdue promise of the return of the ‘Roar’.

  • Suresh Nair is a Singapore-based football journalist, who started his writing career at the height of the ‘Kallang Roar’ in the late 1970s.
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