My F*-ing Life, Part 1

This is a football memoir of sorts.

Hello, my name is Cipan*; and, unlike a lot of other football fans, I was a footballer.

*Of course it's not my real name. My real name is Dato' Paduka Cipan bin Nougat Tenuk.

On the other hand, I have never played soccer for the simple reason that I don't speak American.

In my family all the boys played football and all the girls played netball.

Things were more black and white in those days - men wore pants and women wore skirts. Kids normally run around naked. They are more mixed up these days - I mean the skirts, pants, men, women, kids and the nakedness.

My late dad used to play football too. He was a centreback. He was a good footballer.

He was good enough to be in the Selangor squad for the HMS Malaya Cup competition (nowadays known as the Malaysia Cup).

They won a few times; there were some really cool ancient medals in our old display cabinet (until my elder brother took them to make "groovy" medaillions in the 60s).

I started off playing football on my auntie's lawn. Most of you would know my auntie's house if I told you, so I won't. This is supposed to be an anonymous blog.

We don't normally play in specific positions in those days. We normally decide who will "main atas" and who will "main bawah".

It's strange that even when we've grown up, we seem to have to keep making these same decisions ...

When I got to secondary school, I played for the first time on a real football field. I had to learn in a hurry all the positions that one can play in.

As we grew older, the positions grew more exotic but that's a different story.

I was fast and fit at that time but I didn't have a powerful shot.

Everyone wanted to have powerful shots. We did a lot of exotic exercises to develop these.

Even nowadays some of us continue to try develop even more powerful shots. Most of the time these efforts include things like Tongkat Ali and Viagra.

I was asked to play goalie because I was tall (I'm about six feet tall nowadays). Apparently everyone wanted to be a hero striker but to me real heroes were the keepers.

I admired Arumugam and Ahmad Al-Taraboulsi ( You mean you never heard of this Kuwaiti keeper? Shame on you) so I thought playing a keeper was no problem.

I was so wrong. I never had a goalkeeping coach and no one ever bothered to teach me how. I had to learn by myself and turned out a fairly mediocre keeper. I made several impressive saves and let in quite a few howlers also.

There was one time someone tried a long high pass but overhit the ball. I moved up the penalty area to collect the ball but the ball dropped sooner than I expected. The ball hit the ground right in front of me, bounced way over my head and rolled into the empty goal. Believe me, I know how Steve Harper felt at Anfield last week when Xabi Alonso did that.

As I grew older I started to shun the keeper's slot and started playing in midfield. I realised one day that I was just as good as any of the school team's midfielders but I lacked confidence and I was also not a teacher's (coach) pet.

Somehow the two things always go together - confidence and petting.

Then I went to college overseas on a scholarship and I played football in England.

We used to play at outdoor parks (very cold but free) and indoor courts (very warm and cost money).

We preferred the outdoor parks and to use the money for a pint of bitter afterwards. We only play games in the warm indoors when there were some girls to play with.

I also represented my course in my college's indoor tournament.

We were shite. An English guy and I were the only ones who play regularly and the rest of the team were two other Malaysians (actually badminton players) and a psychotic Nigerian coursemate .

We got whacked 1-4 (the Nigerian psycho gave away 3 penalties all by himself) and I had to play goalie - no one else fancied trying to block 60-mph shots from grinning beastie boys.

It was also difficult trying to keep goal with my hands constantly over my crotch (I had a date to go to after the match)

When I got back to Malaysia and started to work, I was drafted into my department's football team in the company's inter-departmental football tournament.

I remember I didn't have to play goalie anymore because it was a very popular position (you don't have to run a lot playing as goalie. My department had a lot of obese footballers).

My team had a good outing. We qualified for the finals (lost 0-1). I played midfield, then later was pushed up to be top striker. I scored a goal and missed an opportunity to be a hero when I didn't score another (I was already dehydrated, I had cramps and I couldn't be arsed to dribble past the last defender).

I was not very fit then even though I was young. I had an 18-year-old student girlfriend who gives head as soon as I close the front door.

Sometimes she starts even before I close the door. The neighbour's children always look forward to when I come visiting her.

She would also always insist that I sleep over. Not that we sleep much when I did sleep over anyway but that's another story.

So I didn't normally have enough rest so I did not have a very good time, football-wise.