Sunday, November 27, 2011
Cheetahs Win The Big Cat Derby
I guess with the SLeague title to be decided tonight, probably at Tampines Stadium, many people decided not to bother about a meaningless game between Tanjong Pagar and Hougang United. Which was a bad move when you consider Hougang are never involved in dull games.
The Big Cat Derby! Jaguars and Cheetahs at a field in Clementi that looked like the Serengeti after a herd of gnus had tried fording a river. In such atrocious conditions the two teams served up a game that was mildly interesting for the neutral and would have had coaches pulling their hair out in frustration.
Tanjong Pagar started the brighter of the two teams and had enough clear cut chances before half time to have won two games. They converted none and at the break would have gone in very frustrated with the 0-0 scoreline.
However they did, finally, take the lead early in the second half, moments after I had packed my camera away, with the MC, and his deafening speaker system, kindly informing the sparse crowd that the score was indeed 1-0. Thanks for that, we would never have known of he hadn’t told us.
Then came a rapid fire hat trick from Hougang striker Diego Oliveria and it was game over. It was the kind of hat trick that would have people reaching for the record books but the Singapore Football Association don’t believe in such nonsense (they needed to be told when Aleksander Duric had reached 300 goals in the league!).
Typical Hougang. They tease their fans, and they do have some, by going down then putting their foot on the gas and seemingly scoring for fun. Life is never dull at Hougang despite their daft nickname, The Cheetahs…Singapore’s finest football export these days are match fixers so go figure!
For the statto - if you have followed Hougang every game this season you will have seen 118 goals in 33 games (55-63). For Tanjong Pagar fans not so many. Just 98 goals in their 33!
