MyRAWK Team, courtesy of SSPKD website

MyRAWK finally picked up our first 3 points in the Garden Social League in the match against the table toppers, SSPKD that was played during a tropical storm at GIS, Bukit Kiara on Sunday. After throwing away a 2 goal lead and drawing against Predator in our first match, and loosing 4-2 to RDL in a hard second match, this win is a vital morale booster for the boys!

Even before the match got underway, all of us were worried about the dark sky and expected it to rain heavy. True to our predictions, the sky opened up at about 15 minutes before the scheduled kick-off and never relented for over an hour.  The match had to be played irregardless of the weather and once the lightning had slowed down (but not the torrential rain), the match started in difficult conditions. Imagine playing in heavy rain soaked jerseys and running in heavy water clogged boots! Due to the unfortunate delay and the fact that we have to complete the match by 5pm, both teams agreed to play a shortened match of about 70 minutes as there was another match scheduled after ours.

True to our perennial late starter form, we went down early on in the game due to a defensive mix-up and error. Our initial disorganisation was laid bare as we defended for our dear life after that goal. Irregardless, we’re not going to go down like the way we did against RDL (we were 2 goals down in the first period in that match). With the guidance of our skipper – Adrian, all of us settled down and started to imposed our game onto our opponents. With about 1 minute to go before half-time, Allan Loh broke free from our left flank and managed to slot the ball home from a tight angle across SSPKD’s keeper for our equaliser. Our opponents had their chances but could not take advantage of them. Their wingers were tightly marked – Ryan C did a stellar of a job marking their left winger and one of their most influential play maker!

Second half started with a fury of attacks from SSPKD and we conceded a second goal to them due to another defensive mix-up from their corner kick. All of us were thinking: “Here we go again!”  We had to regroup and settle ourselves down again. Slowly but surely, we managed to find our rhythm and started to make use of our speedy forwards who were using their pace to great effect. Our back-line and midfielders  started to distribute the ball better and started pumping the ball to them to chase.  We won a lot of free kicks as a result of them being fouled while charging towards our opponent’s goal.  Up came our towering defensive midfielder, Oscar to take charge of the dead ball situation and he floated in a beautiful ball for Bai to head in our second equaliser. It’s 2-2 and it sent us into a frenzy and we  started thinking we might just be able to do a Fulham or a Burnley (reference to how the smaller teams beat LFC and Man Utd of course)!

We got our second wind after that goal and started to dictate play more. About 10 minutes before the end of the game, we took advantage of another forward surge, deep from our own half to score our 3rd and the winner. Oscar sent in dangerous floated pass to our top scorer Syam, who chested the ball down and turned his marker before firing a fierce shot that beat the keeper but cannoned off the up right! Lady luck was on our side as the ball deflected to Jaz, who followed up on the initial shot and managed to bundle the ball into an empty goal.  We hunkered down after that and managed to keep SSPKD’s attacks at bay to grab our first 3 points.

It was a tough match under tough circumstances. Credits must be given to our opponents SSPKD who pushed us all the way. We must also be thankful that we played in GIS, as the astro turf pitch there had excellent drainage and the pitch was completely dried and had no water patches within about 10 minutes after the rain stopped!

Finally, our rag-a-tag team of players from different fans of BPL clubs are looking like a proper team! We might support rival clubs but are bound together by our love and enjoyment of playing the beautiful game. Thanks for the great effort guys, and lets build it up from here onwards.

MyRAWK Team: Howard (GK), Adrian (Captain), Jonno, Hans, Oscar, Syam, Jaz, Bai, Allan Loh, Allan Lee, JonC, Ryan C, Khai and Steven.

Man-of-the-match: Ryan C (Oscar played his best game yet for us too and deserved a mention)

Scorers: Allan Loh, Bai and Jaz

Final score: MyRAWK 3 – 2 SSPKD

- Jon “Aquaman”  Cheah