2007 season’s review
22/03/08

Isaac on his way to goal

Four years ago in May 2003, a group of players gathered for a game of football in the now-defunct Marina South football pitch which unsurprisingly ended in defeat. With no proper team kits and let alone a name for the team to be associated with, that team doesn’t looked any different from the next neighborhood team who periodically gets set-up so quickly and gone just in a flash.

Fast forward to 2007, that team is now known as Central Park Football Club, affectionately known as Sharks and yes, they have a proper kit now. Founded with the belief that it will provide its players the opportunity to compete at the highest level possible, there isn’t anything bigger than the National Football League for an amateur team who never once won any competitions that they have participated in but the club roots remained firmly on the ground as it maintained a team in ESPZEN, competing in Division 6.

Saturday, 17th March 2007 was a symbolic day as the team set foot at Farrer Park, a ground always associated with the colorful history of local football folklore. The opposition was Crescent Villa. Ninety minutes gone, the Sharks were still a goal down. With the clock ticking in injury time, Ng Heng Li put his name in the history books by scoring the leveler, instantaneously giving Central Park Football Club their first ever point in their debut and the Sharks frontman putting his name in the club history books by scoring his team first ever goal in the NFL. If anyone was guessing that the dream run is going to go on, they were to be disappointed as the team went on a winless run of 13 games which include a 9-0 demolition job by eventual champion Tiong Bahru at Tanglin. However, the team pulled themselves up with a 4-1 victory over Sporting Westlake in the next game and a 2-2 draw against Summerville before going down 5-1 against Sunrise Place and PUB in their final two games, ending the season bottom of the league with just 6 points from 1 win and 3 draws.

Soerensen drives his team on

Over at ESPZEN, with just barebones of the team left, the club went on a recruitment drive which brought the likes of Jason Tan, Syed Iskandar, Goh Zhuoneng, Thomas Soerensen and Michael Jorgensen to the fold but in truth, the team was always going to struggle as they finished the season in 4th place. In the meantime, the last game of the season spells the end of veteran utility player Lutz Fullgraf’s reign with the club as he decided to hang up his boots after making 62 appearances for the club since August 2005.

With their tails in between their legs after the NFL experience and an inconsistent season on the ESPZEN front, it was a choice to either regroup players from both teams playing in these leagues or to give both these teams their own identity. The management chose the latter and Central Park International was borne, consisting of a mixture of local and expatriates players while Central Park FC consists of local players, in view of future participation in FAS tournaments and made up mainly from the players who took part in the club’s NFL misadventure.

Fears of how two teams will fare during this transitional period were laid to rest at the end of ESPZEN Season 7 which kicked off in August when both teams managed to secure automatic promotion placing with their 2nd place finishing, new recruit Isaac Mong receiving a personal accolades by finishing as the Division Top Scorer with 20 goals for FC and International team averaging 4 goals per game and finishing the season finding the net no less than 68 times in 14 games.

Iskandar lining up a freekick

While critics may find that the club as a whole didn’t reach the highs of 2006, the experience gained from the NFL adventure alone on and off the field was invaluable to both the players and the management and NFL is by far, the epitome in amateur football and being part of it falls perfectly in line with the club’s vision of providing its members with the highest playing level possible. The chairman however summed it up where it all went wrong by commenting, ‘Somehow, somewhere, our visions got skewed to the point whereby we had players who came in just to join the NFL bandwagon. In our pursuit going thru this path, we lost the beliefs of players who play for the team and acquiring players to play for the team instead. We learn from this debacle and move on stronger.’

The highs and lows in 2007 however weren’t possible without the dedication of the players who came down religiously for 78 games during the year and managing a total of 37 wins, 10 draws and finding the net no less than 229 times. With an average of 3 goals per game, it wasn’t a surprise that it was a keen contest for the players to grab the title as the club’s top scorer for the year with Naoki Fukushima managing only to pip Ng Heng Li, who have held that title for 2 consecutive year by just a single goal, finishing with 22 goals as compared to the latter’s 21. Close behind was new recruit Thomas Soerensen who finished with 20 goals to his name. Further down that list include the likes of Jason Tan, Syed Iskandar, Richard Benkovic and Isaac Mong who managed to find the net at least 15 times and the list goes on to include the defensive act of Goh Zhuoneng and Jeffrey Soon to get their name on the list with a goal each to their name.

Job well done

While goals are essential to win games, a quote by Isaac Mong ‘Goals are just the by-products of the game’ meant the contributions in defense were as crucial as the goals from the front as we have the emergence of defensive duo Vincent Yeo and Michael Jorgensen who became the mainstay at the heart of CPI’s defense. Both were ably flanked by the likes of Goh Zhuoneng, Fahrun Anderson, Jerry Kheng and Michael Jensen during the course of the season. For FC, new recruits such as Ridzman Rahman have added some stability in defense by forming a partnership with seniors such as Charlson Tay, Teo Yi Quan and Kelvin Tan. The Sharks culture continues with players such as Robert Price, Thomas Soerensen, Naem Rohman, and Muzzammil Abdul Malek calling the club as their own and making their contributions count for the team’s second place showing in the league.

However in any contact sports, there are bound to be causalities during the course of the year as the team had to make do without the services of players such as Zulkifli Awab who despite nursing a groin injury continues to turn out for the team while Chin Jiawen and Andi Mirza both had to undergo knee reconstruction after damaging their ACL. Team captain Jeremy Chua was probably the worst of the lot as he had to endure the year with reoccurrences of his knee injury just one week before the start of the NFL and while he managed to recover from that, a damage to his ankle at the end of the NFL season meant that he missed almost the whole season in ESPZEN at the tail end of the year.

Another mudbath worthwhile

Though 2007 was somewhat a roller-coaster season, one thing that stood out was the players who continue to don the Sharks jersey, whether result were favorable or not. These are players who are proud to be associated with the team rather than just being part of a setup. While there are several individuals in the team that played their hearts out and contribute immensely during the year, Vincent Yeo stood up with his resolute performance in the year after taking over the captaincy role from the departing CPI’s captain Lutz Fullgraf. His overall play improved over the year with some majestic displays during the season and his partnership with Michael Jorgensen looked to be blossoming from each game as the season moves on.

The year nonetheless was a bitter-sweet experience for the club as a whole but at the end of it, the club achieved milestones which would rarely be replicate with other clubs of the same stature, having players who can call Central Park Football Club as their own.

Come 2008, it is going to be another chapter for both Central Park International and Central Park FC as they continue their journey in Division 5 and 7 respectively. The questions that will be asked would be, will they do better than 2007? Will the club be sending a team in the Islandwide League at the tail-end of 2008? All this will be answered in the months ahead.