My Sports Life

Let me tell you briefly about my sports life. Unlike my wife, I am what they call in an old adage, “Jack of all trades, and Master of none.”

I vividly recalled since my early primary days, football has been my staple diet for sports. I remembered my mother’s rants as my Bata school shoes lasted only a few months before she had to buy another pair for me again. I also played badminton seasonally normally at communal courts such as Rukun Tetangga, at the back lane of my friend’s house and at open car parks. Badminton was come and go, depending on who the group of friends were, but football has always been like “any time, any place, you name it.”

This took me up to secondary schools when my buddy friend urged me to try out hockey. I remembered I bought a hockey stick with him at Thrifty Super Market in Section 14 as it was called then. The “must-have” stick then was the Karachi King 3 Star made in Pakistan. Pakistan was on top of the world then in Hockey. I was more like just accompanying him and later got selected into the under 15 and under 18 school team. I also tried to get into the school team for football but the coach rejected me because I was wearing glasses. So my secondary school life was all about hockey and of course leisure football. I used to follow British football division 1 as it was known then. The 1979 FA cup final between Arsenal and Man Utd was permanently etched in my mind. This classic match here…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_FA_Cup_Final

When I got into the university, my friend urged me to take up squash. I suspected the motives were due to some girls taking up the game as well. Although I continued playing competitive hockey in the University, squash was my social activity with my friends. I still remembered the Australian siblings, Brett and Michelle Martin were World No. 1 then which I never failed to follow.

After graduation, I started my working career and golf was introduced to me. Golf was starting to get popular in the early nineties with countless golf clubs booming all over the country. Golf in the corporate world was like the next thing to do after talking business. Large multinational petroleum Companies threw lavish golf tournaments annually with lots of goodies to give away. I got crazy with my group of equally crazy friends. Whenever there was a golf date, it doesn’t matter where and when, rain or shine, we will be there even if it means getting up at 5am in the morning. I have even kept my scores in all the games I played in. It was during this cross roads that I was forced to forgo my racquet games because it was affecting my golf swings.

Naturally, I enrolled for membership at Kelab Golf Kuala Kubu Bharu and later Bukit Jalil Golf and Country Club. Golf became my weekend ritual. So the tanner you become, its a dead give away that you been under the blazing sun. The joke then about handicap was the better you are at golf, the lower your handicap is and that number represents the number of just how many working days you put in your office per month.

Then, sometime in 2006, my dormant hobby as a car enthusiast suddenly came alive with the sport of drifting started to pick-up its popularity. The Nissan Silvia turbo-charged coupe dominated drifting competitions and I instantly fell in love it.

Having acquired one Nissan Silvia S15 myself, I began to immerse myself into this new playground. Together with like minded owners, we began our foray into acquiring skills and knowledge about rear wheel drive handling dynamics, modification and power upgrades. Although I was still able to break away for my golf games occasionally but  inevitably, it gradually waned. Although I don’t drift competitively with my car but I had interest in the sport and attended many locally organized drifting events. I also followed many other motorsport programmes such as F1, Japan Super GT, Australian V8, BTCC, WRC, and European DMT. GT1 etc. It wasn’t until I met Kenneth Lau, the owner of Pitworks that I began to involve myself in competitive racing, go-karting, gymkhana and time attack. More here…

http://gunner93.multiply.com/journal

For me, motorsports racing has its limits. It requires big budget and unfortunately I was not in that league. However, I remain an ardent car enthusiast until today.

As Ryan and Aaron grew up, their weekend activities began to demand more attention. I still play golf by invitation but the lengthy time in which the game took meant that I have more often than not turned the game down.

Strangely, for the past two years, I found myself started to pick up my badminton racquet again. Courtesy of my company’s sports club, I started playing badminton every Thursday evenings with my colleagues. That was the time my wife and I began to introduce the game to the boys. When they were selected into their school badminton team, it suddenly dawned on me that they too deserved to excel in the sports they love. Unlike us, the boys have the whole future ahead of them. We decided to take this journey together with them and see where it leads to. So that was how this blog came to be.

Hanson Badminton Team (L to R) Brandon, Eric, Yours Truly, Jason, Uncle, Nazri (crouching), Sophia & Yee Suk  (Absent Alex Lim)