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Vice Chairman of
Squash Racket Association of Federal Territory (SRAFT), |
18th
Mar. 2003 |
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Steven Kwan
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by Tricia Chuah |
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A well mannered and pleasant guy from Terengganu, he is better
known among friends as ‘Jam’ (pronounced as “jump” without the
‘p’, and definitely not like the fruit preserve). Finishing
secondary school last year in BJSS, he scored 4 As in 2002’s Sijil
Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), science stream, and topped the lot of
BJSS squash players. Mind you, it’s not an easy task to do both
studies and sports, while living miles away from home at a young
age. So......bravo, Jam! I took him and two other players, Fabian
and Shahril, after one of their regular evening training sessions,
to Gloria Jeans, Mt. Kiara for dinner and......ice blends!!! |
| Good chat......he was funny at
times, but......definitely NOT when he splashed spaghetti sauce on
my interview sheets! |
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Who started the
KL League? |
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Steven :
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Mr.
Abdullah Sani, our president, initiated it. He got one of his company,
SYSPOR to sponsor the event. We were talking about the MILO KL League.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but back in the 80’s, it was a
very popular league, where about 80 over teams participated, from
division one to division five. When SRAFT actually went into
hibernation, that league went dormant as well after being very
successful for 3 to 5 years. There were no sponsors for a period of
time, for at least 8 years until we came in. We got SYSPOR as a
sponsor, and we brought back the KL League again. This is the fourth
year running now. |
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80 over teams?! Wow! How many teams are there now? |
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Steven :
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Now, we
have 40 over teams in four divisions. Actually, it started off with 18
teams only. I’m sure our sponsors would like to see it grow to 80 over
teams like those days. But since SYSPOR is the only sponsor at the
moment, we are doing it at a small scale. Until we find the interest
of the league growing, we’ll get a bigger budget to do a bigger squash
league down the road. |
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Right......how
many players are there per team? |
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Steven :
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Six.
Four playing, and the other two are the reserves. Every team has a
team captain and a manager. The team captain mainly does all the
faxing of results after the matches. The team managers attend meetings
on behalf of all the players, and he will decide on what’s best for
the team and stuff like that. |
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Who are these
players in the teams? |
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Steven :
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Division
One consists mainly of the national players......our locals and even
some foreigners like Mike Corren and his friends. Division Two is more
of the lower ranked national players. Actually, it’s all on the
malaysiasquash.com's web site......the team line up, the draw,
results, order of play and venue of the games. |
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Really? That’s
very convenient! The league comprises of national and professional
squash players only? |
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Steven :
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No, not
at all. The whole idea of this league is mainly for club level
playing. We have the KL Open for international players so, we were
looking for an event for club level people. That’s why we came back
with this league! We wanted these people to get a chance to play a
tournament. |
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So, that’s the
objective of the league? |
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Steven :
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Correct.
For clubs and social level people who wants to play some games......to
socialise. With a league, players from different clubs gather once a
year for 2 to 3 months. As the league is on a home and away
basis, they visit other clubs, and these other clubs visit their home
courts too. They play around, have fun games, and laugh about
it......it’s very nice, you know. It’s good! So, that’s the whole idea
of the league. |
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How regular are
the matches played? |
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Steven :
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It’s on
every week. Division One plays on Monday, Division Two plays on
Tuesday and so on. They play continuously once every week, depending
on the draw; home or away. Meaning the same teams play each other
twice. |
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Continue |
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