A Short Memoir Spanning Seven Decades


 

Youthful Sporting Doctor Mukhtiar Sidhu was invited by the Seletar Young Indians Football Club to join the Club around 1952, as its’  Sports Secretary as it needed an English educated member to handle correspondence and liaison. 

Dr Mukhtiar recalls:

The Club was affiliated to the Singapore Football Association and took part in the SFA Division League. Hence, for the first few years I handled all the ground work, mainly administrative and coordination with (SFA) that was located in Sports House in Farrer Park.



Front Row from L: 1Palani (RIP); 4Vinayagam (RIP); 5 Dr Sidhu 6Chandrasekaran; 7Suppiah G;   9Sasidharan (in Perth). 2nd. Row from L 3Jayaram; 5Velayadan;  6 Sankran 

 I also conducted internal meetings in Tamil! as I was fluent in Tamil having picked up the language from childhood friends.

The football practice sessions were held in a field near Hot Water Springs, kindly leased to us by Frazer and Neave for a token sum of $2 a year! before F&N built its Seletaris spring water bottling plant.

A few years after joining the Club, I invited my English educated classmates from Admiralty Asian School to join Seletar FC which helped the club progress.  

  As I began to get more involved in my Medical studies, I delegated the day- to- day matters to others, especially Palani and Vinayagam.

 When the Naval Base was handed to Singapore Government, and the Naval Base Trade Union disbanded in 1971, we were fortunate to be able to use the Union’s building at 14 M/s (mile stone) as our Club House.

When I left Singapore for Brisbane in 1976, the club continued functioning till the early eighties. Subsequently, due to Sembawang Road widening works we again had to move to a building along Pakistan Road. Eventually, I think around 1990, the site was redeveloped, and the premier Indian football club in Sembawang "died" a natural death.

Story and photo copyright of Dr Mukhtiar Sidhu.

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