Ruamrudee International School

Disaster struck!! We were in our third game of the day, on the first day of the 2001 SEASAC (South East Asia Sports Activities Conference) soccer tournament held at the United World College, Singapore. Our goalkeeper Swapnil, had just made a heroic dive and prevented the opposing team from scoring, but remained in a crumpled heap between the goalposts.

Anxious minutes followed while we waited for medical help to arrive, and our substitute goalkeeper Kentaro donned his goalkeeper’s uniform to complete the game. The nurse decided that Swapnil needed to get to a hospital, so we waited for the ambulance to arrive and cheered on the RIS boys’ team, which lost that game by 3 goals to 2. After the game the team sat around Swapnil to help him overcome his pain and misery, while wondering what our chances were for the next few games without our main goalkeeper. In our first two games we had scored 13 goals, conceding only two goals. Now we had to win our next game to be sure of reaching the quarterfinal stage of the tournament.

It had all started so well. Throughout the season the boys had learned to play as a team, slowly improving in fitness and winning most of their matches against other International schools in Bangkok. In our last game of the season, we had played against Bangkok Christian College, one of the top teams in Bangkok. Although we lost, the final score of 6 goals to 8 was extremely encouraging, and we fancied our chances in Singapore at the SEASAC tournament.

We had managed to obtain more than 45,000 Baht in sponsorships, which included 30,000 Baht from the Maalenont family (Channel 3), and donations from friends of Mrs. Cha Sow King. The RIS Student Council had provided traveling bags for the whole team, and we used part of the sponsorship money to buy travelling shirts designed by the RIS Art department, for both the boys and girls teams.

Now we were on our way, looking forward to an extremely competitive tournament against seven other teams from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar. Last year the RIS boys team had placed second;this year we hoped to do better. We left school at 11:30 on a Thursday morning, as the first game was to be played early Friday morning

We were met at the airport and taken to the Peninsular Hotel, where rooms had been reserved for the team. We were able to go out for dinner, then get to our beds to get a good night’s sleep before our next day’s games. After a good breakfast, we climbed onto the coaches at 0730, and were driven to the UWC campus, about 40 minutes away.

The boys played four games on the first day, winning three of them and scoring 17 goals. Our substitute goalkeeper Kentaro made some brilliant saves, only allowing in 3 goals for that first day. The next days matches would prove crucial to our success of failure. In the meantime, Swapnil had been taken to hospital, where X-rays showed he had fractured his hip, and would be out of the competition. Since the fracture was at the top of the hip, we were able to persuade the doctor that he would be given the best of care in Thailand, and would not need to stay on, in a Singapore hospital.

The following day we played against the strongest teams of the tournament; United World Colleges Singapore; New International School of Thailand, and British International School Jakarta. These were in fact, the other three teams that reached the quarterfinals of the tournament together with RIS.

We drew 2-2 with NIST (both games played against NIST in Bangkok had ended in a draw, this was the third game), but lost 4-1 to UWC, and 2-0 to BISJ, who would turn out to be the eventual winners of the tournament. Final games were played on Sunday, leaving us just enough time to get back to the hotel, collect our luggage and leave for the airport.

On Saturday night, we were treated to the SEASAC dinner at the UWC campus, and the teams were allowed to stay up a little later, as our games were not due to start until 0930. We played NIST, losing by 1-0, so that NIST placed third and RIS fourth. The final of the tournament ended in a draw even after additional time, and BISJ finally won the tournament on a penalty shoot out.

Presentations of trophies were made after the final games. Our star goal scorer Farouk received a trophy as top scorer of the tournament with eleven goals to his credit. He was also chosen as a member of the all stars team of ten players (selected by the coaches) from observing all participants in the tournament.

Time to leave!! We said our farewells to friends we had made from other schools, and tired and happy, boarded our flight home.

The Varsity boys soccer team retains ten players from this year’s team, so we shall try to do better next year (in Indonesia). Thank you to all the administrators, teachers, staff and students, family and friends who contributed in so many ways to make the soccer season and the SEASAC trip a success. We hope to pick up new players next year; current players please keep fit- you will have lots of competition. See you at the try-outs next September.

Alan Tin-Win.