KEVII Rugby - 30 Years Of Memories

Yesterday, I was in Taiping for a reunion of former King Edward VII School rugby players from 1978 and later. It was an inaugural event held after 30 years of being one of the kingpins of schools rugby in Malaysia. The beginning was in 1978 it all boiled down to one man, Mr Yiew Siew Seng. Last night we honored coach Mr Yiew Siew Seng (1978 to 1986) and current coach Ahmad Din (since 1994).

I was part of the 1978 team and the small group that put together this reunion over a 4 week period. Led by Tiger Jalil, the rest of the guys are Tigers Tan Poh Hong, Cheng Sun Huat, Ramli, Mariappan and Hamdan Azmir. We knew from the initial response that it would be a success. At the dinner, the sight of more than one hundred and twenty Tigers dressed in similar jerseys with personalized jersey numbers, sharing great camaraderie and memories made all those late night planning meetings worthwhile.

There were some I had not met in 30 years! A few hundred photographs must have been taken as former teammates sought to relive old memories and create new ones. The spirit of the evening made me glad I agreed to be part of an effort that earlier, many must have only thought of but never acted upon.

The decision to have the 70s and early 80s jersey reproduced proved to be fantastic; wearing, and seeing everyone wearing one somehow rolled back the years! The personalized numbers on the back definitely added to the pride of belonging to an exclusive group of KEVII students. The game epitomized the school!

Mr Yiew shared his success formula in his speech. He said, in 1978 he knew he had material for the makings of a championship side but what the players lacked was belief! We all know so well how he went about instilling that belief. I am glad he confirmed what I posted earlier about my lesson learnt from rugby in school; "What did I learn from all the above? I learned one of life's valuable lessons: No matter what or who you are up against, prepare well and have confidence in your own abilities. Virtually nothing is impossible to those who believe!".

More photos will be put up here as soon as I receive them from owners of the many cameras last night! In the meantime, these are from my phone-cam: