My fellow MFCians,
Year 2012 is coming to an end. It has been a month or so
since Rong An and I are elected as your captains. Rong An and I have been in
constant discussion over the month talking about new ideas and initiatives that
would move MFC forward not just in terms of football, but also in the aspects
of hopefully making the team more bonded and willing to play for each other.
Rong An and I would like to thank everyone who has voted for us and putting the
trust in us to lead the team.
Before the message proceeds to the main contents, let us do
a review of the year 2012. As everyone have seen, our previous captains, Walter
and Gerald, has done a great job over the past year and very importantly open
the doors for MFC to play in a competitive league for the first time. Many were
unsure of what lies ahead as we venture to play teams with much more experience
than us. Nevertheless, we were relegated (which we shouldn’t have if we have
put away results early in that season) to the lower division and finished third
place in that division the same year. MFC has come a long way from playing at the
kampong muddy field of Katong with poor administration, pitch, referees,
organiser etc. In terms of playing in an amateur organised league, we are a
relatively young team, although MFC is entering into its 15 year of existence.
Hence, it is expected that results doesn’t always go our way. But what matters
is at the end of the day, you can tell yourself you have given your all and is
satisfied with your own performance.
Of course the beginning of 2012 wasn’t really a smooth one
as MFC was met/challenged with financial issues because of the irresponsibility
of our appointed financial man. Our captains resolved that quickly and got us
playing in our maiden league game. Augustine accepted the team’s financial
duties, done a good job in tracking the club fund to the finest detail of cents
and also has willingly continued to be MFC’s financial man for one more
year.
Side note: X-league is
giving us only 20 medals for our third place finish. However, after discussion
with some of the players, we all agreed that a third place finish for MFC is a
team effort no matter how much you have contributed. Hence, we will be using
our club fund to buy another six medals for all 26 brave MFCians. Get ready the
champagne people!
As MFC heads into its 15 years of existence (it’s a long
long way man), I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the history
of MFC and the badge you wore on your chest week in week out to remind
ourselves of who and what we are and also give some of the players who have
recently joined or re-joined us an opportunity to look at what it means to be a
part of Maestro Football Club.
Maestro FC was started by a bunch
of Chung Cheng High School (Br) Military Band boys actually playing basketball
back in 1998 after their band practices. We switched to football as there is an
empty field just beside the basketball court. After playing informally for
about 10 years, in 2008, Walter Tan, one of the original military band members
decided to formalise the team, laying the foundations for the birth of the name “Maestro FC”. Maestro FC was given an identity, a web presence and more
importantly a sense of belonging for all players. We soon swapped our drums and brass for boots
and balls, with some of the original members leaving for various reasons. Together
with some of the original band members, Maestro FC was expanded to form a full
team of currently 26 players from all walks of life, including friend’s friends
and siblings. To better sum up the identity of Maestro FC, I re-shared The New
Paper article on “Bonding is easy for this band”.
Going to the main contents of this message, as captain and vice-captain
of MFC for 2013, Rong An and I would like to share some of the initiatives
(football and non-football) we have discussed over the past month. We hope that
this will benefit MFC and our players and should there be any suggestions,
ideas, disagreement etc, pls feel free to voice/discuss it openly here on the
blog, on our whatspp group chat or you can PM me privately.
Non-football related
1. Our x-league game will be previewed by our
webmasters from time to time and they will be posing questions to a MFCian
prior to a league match for the match preview. The preview could be in the form
of questions and answers or even a video interview. Stay tuned for this! #Preview
2. We will be continuing the player of the quarter
award. However, the award will not be limited to a few players. It will be a
free for all selection. Vote for your player of the quarter meticulously,
taking into consideration not only footballing reasons but also, as what set
out by Walter and Gerald, punctuality, attitude etc. That is – the whole
package. Captains are also included in the selection process J The winner of the
player of the quarter will be able to play a league game for free and will not
pay for any expenses as per point no. 3 below. #Player of Quarter
3. The player of the quarter award will be held in
conjunction with a quarterly welfare outing (Feb, May, Aug, Nov). As we know,
MFC used to have outings which were scrapped because of poor attendance. We
hope to bring back the outings for MFC for obvious reasons and in order to make
it more interesting for all of us, and with more variations, the gathering/outing will be organised
by a different pair of MFCians selected by the captains. Any other suggestions
will be welcomed J #Quarterly Outing
4. Jerseys: We have discussed and conclude that
there is not really a need to make a new football jersey for the team. However,
we have an idea of making a polo tee where all MFCians will come/leave for
games in that polo tee. Remember, a battle is half won even before the first
whistle goes. Opponents looking at us
coming in a “uniform” will not take us lightly. Of course, the polo tee also
provides all MFCians a sense of belonging to the team. The tee can also be used
for gathering/outing, AGM, elections and other purposes (like Chris’ wedding?).
Again, any other suggestions/ideas are welcomed J #Shirt
5. We hope everyone can see that we want every
single one of you to contribute to the team in different ways – be it being the
player chosen for a match preview, writing a match review, organising an outing
for the team, helping in finance matters, and of course playing scoring and
defending well for the team. #Contribution
Football related
1. Players are all advised to come half an hour
before a match as usual. However, we have decided not to do the regular warm
up. It should be at the discretion of all players to warm up at their own time
half hour before the match. What we will do is ball-related drills, i.e. simple
short and long passing, receiving the ball, shooting, heading, throw-ins etc.
Currently, we have 6 - 7 balls (if I’m not wrong) and we have a total of 26 –
27 players. We will allocate one ball to 4 – 5 players. It is the responsibility
within the 4 players to bring the ball weekly so that we can have the balls for
the drills before a match. Drills (about 15 – 20 minutes) will be conducted, as
much as possible, within the group. We think that it is important for everyone
to improve progressively on any aspects of their game with the drills weekly.
One ball is shared among four players according to their jersey numbers and
hence here it goes:
a.
02 Kartik, 03 Joel, (05 Big Eric), 07 Alan, 00
Jinde
b.
08 Howard, 09 Guo Xian, 10 Chris Tan, 11 Rong An
c.
12 Walter, 13 Calvin, 14 Augustine, 16 Thomas
d.
17 Norris, 18 Lil Eric 19 Hakim, 20 Jonathan
e.
22 Gerald, 23 Brian Teo, 24 Alywin, 27 Wee Hian
f.
41 Jeramy, 50 Abhi, 80 Jeffery, 96 Eugene
g.
(GK) 01 Gary, 13 Calvin, 15 Brian Zhong
In conclusion, Rong An and I hope that, through these initiatives (football and non-football related), we hope to bring MFC a step forward as a team technically (football) and socially (non-football). Of course, we would like to emphasize that we welcome any other suggestions from any players to add to the list above.
We believe that everyone has a part to play in
making the team more united and more experienced. So if you have any, please do
so in our group chat and we can discuss as a team over there.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all MFCians! Back to
serious business, we hope to start well for 2013 and will continue our assault
on our third season of league games from 6 January 2013 onwards!
Best Regards,
GX and RA
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