Friends Of STAR

The Perak Hockey Champion Trophy was untouchable. The Indian and the Singh had a strong grip on it. The Anglo Chinese School, St Michael Institution and Anderson School of Ipoh rotated amongst themselves the trophy. Sometimes King Edward of Taiping or Sultan Yusof School of Batu Gajah may get a grip. Clifford of Kuala Kangar may be too historically strong for MCKK.

I remembered Pak Amri of our dinning hall saying, "Anderson lagi besor. Anderson ada Principal. STAR ada Guru Besor saja". In hockey, STAR is small.

In 1970 we received a new remove student YB Saari Sungip who brought along his hockey stick. Kampung Baru primary school in 1969 participated in hockey for the U12 Hockey Tournament. Saari played in the Selangor school championship and was presented with the stick.

The rest of us were introduced to hockey at STAR. Probably the yellow house boys picked the game earlier and faster. The hockey pitch was next to yellow house. Customarily yellow will win inter house hockey and green the volleyball.

Our remove class teacher who was teaching us geography(ingat2 lupa) was Mr David Thambirajah. He coached the hockey game. In 1972 the STAR U20 team had players such as Dato Fadzil Khir, Fakri Abdullah, Md Taib Mat, Dato Nasir Ahmad, Affendi Yahaya to start the inter school challenge. They reached 3rd place(ingat tak ingat) The U16 was also quite impressive but didn't go far. Mr Thambirajah was the coach. Many of the seniors helped introduce the game to us.

We put up a good show in 73 loosing to the eventual winner ACS.

Yes we can. 1974, we were ready!

We had Muhammad Shah Bakar, now with Petronas in Goal. Muhammad Shah also kept wicket for the STAR Cricket team. The defence were marshalled by Mashkon Shamsuri and Shamsudin Ishak, both from Malacca. Both never stopped running. Their stamina were in abundance.

They always shared the top spors for cross country with Ruslan Muhammad Diah and Tahar Husin. Mashkon was strong even without Tongkat Ali from Perusahaan Orang Kampung where he worked as GM for many years. Shamsudin, GM of KLCC Urus, played very intelligently. He will just push the ball away from the opponent. A smart philosophy and technique.

Roslan Muhammad Diah, a stockbroker, Abdul Hanid Zakaria, TM Senior Manager and Tahar Husin were tough midfielders.

Our wingers, Chamati Ahmad a teacher in Muar and Shamsuri Shariff(F4) a lecturer at UIA were fast being school sprinters and crossed the ball well.

It was easy for the three forwards. On the right Dzawahir Abdul Ghani, a contractor just connected-in from those crosses. YB Saari, PAS ADUN Selangor was good with his wrist. His drbbling and connection of crosses produced dozen of goals. On the left was Mansor Awang an energy conservationist, running every corner chasing after crosses. Being also a school sprinter it was my main role to chase after those heats from the fullbacks and halves and make crosses.

We met ACS in the semifinal and we were into the final for the first time. I erased my memory of the final because I was suspended for heating the ACS captain and forgot whom we played in the final. It didn't matter because we were the CHAMPION! The first state championship in hockey for STAR.

Yes we also can! Even scoring with backstick if it need be, in a goal melee.

A full school colour was the reward for me.