National Stadium – finally ……

The time has finally come. The National Stadium will be torn down after a 3 year delay it’s finally happening … its the start of the end.

The National Stadium holds fond memories for me. My earliest recollection of it was during the Malaysia Cup days when Singapore played any visiting Malaysian team. Some of the more popular matches, my dad would get us tickets and the whole family including my mum would go. We had to reach there early to get a good spot and usually we left just before the end to ‘escape’ the mad rush after the final whistle. It was more of a family picnic my mum would make sandwiches or hot dogs and my dad would get the balloons, sometime my uncle would join us. I really love those balloons, it was the long kind usually had stripes on it and you inserted the ‘whistle’ part at the end and when you let it go it would launch with that  wheeeeeeeee sound. It was my first encounter with the National Stadium and football in general the great nicknames of the footballers like Camel, Gelek King, Banana Kick, Spiderman, Crazy Horse etc. were all familar to me. When it rain you used newspaper to cover your head or if you are lucky you would have your umbrella with you. No one can forget the Kallang Roar (and later the Kallang wave) and the most famous 3 words …. “Drinks, Kachang, Keropok”. In my later years during my secondary school days, it was where the Sports Day would be held and I guess I had the opportunity to at least run on the track. My National Service days saw me training there for formation runs and relays. When I started working, it was a place I hardly went. I can only remember 3 times I went there. Once with a group of friend to watch Man U play in Singapore, another time was the most recent visit by Liverpool and one of the last was a sort of Family reunion where my whole family including my mom and sister went was to watch Singapore played Thailand in one of the last matches at the Stadium.

In a couple of years the spanking new Sports Hub will be ready and I will definately look forward to that. Would catch a game or two :)