Soccer Fellowship Report [21st July]

It was gloomy all day and there were incessant showers in the eastern region of Singapore. Despite this, Soccer Fellowship continued and it was a surprise that a record number of players turned up for the session. More than 30 players came to play in the rain and enjoy themselves on a much-softer pitch. Glenn shared some thoughts from the Bible this week, which can be summarised by the letters A, B & C.

A lways seek God's mercy & forgiveness.
B e merciful and forgive one another.
C ompletely trust in God.

With this in mind, Glenn opened in prayer, thanking God for the cool weather and the opportunity to fellowship over soccer.

The guys listening to Glenn share from the Bible

All getting ready for a good work-out

Jimmy (Blues) and Kevin (Whites) captained the 2 teams. With the huge number of players, substitutes were lined up on the bench, eagerly waiting to come on. Both teams looked evenly matched, although the Blues had the majority of younger players while the Whites were mostly middle-aged and looked to lack a bit of pace. Nonetheless, the match was played in a competitive spirit, with neither team wanting to give an inch to the other. The Whites pressed strongly in the first half, with Glenn & Jeremy Tan both coming close. On one occasion, a slick move saw Jeremy Tan blasting high with the goal at his mercy. It was only after a brilliant shot from the edge of the box from Damien that caught the Blues 1st half keeper Jimmy off-guard, and put the Whites 1-0 up. The Blues response was swift, especially after some substitutions which saw Rusdyi, Daniel Low & JZ coming on to add pace to the attack. On one of the forays down the left flank, a low cross found JZ completely unmarked to slot the ball into the net to level the scores 1-1.

The 2nd half saw the Whites needing to take the lead again in order to win the game. Some re-organisation had to take place with influential midfielder Bangshi calling it a day to reserve some energy for a 10km run (Choon Heng calls this a light jog!!!) the next day. With Kevin playing a rather high line as sweeper, the Blues had to be careful not to be caught by the offside-trap and managed to breach the line on more than 1 occasion, but to no avail with shots either going wide, saved by the goalkeeper, or not being able to be converted. It was thus the Whites that took the opportunity to make their chances count with Maurice robbing Jimmy of the ball and slotting it past Michael Chua to put the Whites 2-1 up. Then, Jermaine rounding the keeper after a defensive mix-up to give the Whites a 3-1 lead. The Blues started to chase the game on a surge down the right flank, Darren floated a deep cross which fooled the keeper to sail into the empty net. With the score at 3-2, it was anybody's game. Fortunately for the Whites, Maurice & Jermaine were really on form and grabbed another goal each to put the Whites up 5-2 for good. Maurice even tried an audacious over-head kick that would have completely his hat-trick, but the shot went narrowly wide. Final score-

Whites 5

[Scorers- Damien, Jermaine (2) & Maurice (2)]

Blues 2

[Scorers- Jingzhong & Darren]