Badminton memories and Thomas Cup defeats

So I've just finished watching Malaysia's latest defeat in the Thomas Cup and I must say, the amount of support given to our team by the students here is amazing. Even with close to 90% of Kolej Seroja's population back home for the holidays, there was still quite a number of us at the TV room cheering our boys on. People were even swinging their shirts and jumping on chairs everytime Malaysia scores a point! Guess you can't take the badminton out of any Malaysian huh? It's like we're born with the love for this sport. I can still clearly remember the days in primary school when we would bring our racquets along to school and play badminton every free moment we had. And we would be pretending to be our favorite players too. My friend would be Rashid Sidek, another would be Hariyanto Arbi and I would be Paul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen (a Dane, right?). The badminton club was always the hottest club around too, with more students than places...which was why I got bumped into the soccer club. Not that I'm complaining now! Those were some great childhood days. I probably haven't played as much badminton in the past 9 to 10 years as I have back then. Indeed, my badminton skills are probably so rusty now that I'm even embarrassed to play the game. Trust me, I tried.

Anyways as for Malaysia's defeat, what can I say? The boys gave it their best shot and lost. It was pure bad luck that led to Malaysia's defeat and not lack of skill. Wong Choon Hann's injury meant that we had to rely on the relatively untested Kuan Beng Hong (who was rather tastelessly jeered by some here as Kuan 'Bengong') and the results are for all to see. Having said that however, I feel that the current batch of Malaysian players are the best that we've had in a while. Give them another two years and they'll probably be world beaters. That's right, I'm being optimistic for a change!