The Beautiful Game (2008)

    What is it exactly that makes a grown man -- usually aged two score and more and in gainful managerial employ -- start to tingle inside from around Wednesday morning, a frisson of excitement and anticipation that grows in intensity through the rest of the week reaching a thumping crescendo of pre-match butterflies on a Saturday morning?

    Just what is it about the Beautiful Game that can reduce otherwise sane and normal middle-aged expatriate executives to a throbbing and quivering bundle of nerves? The so-called Andrew Marshall Syndrome can also leave erstwhile businessmen inconsolable at the harsh reality of a postponed weekend game, the mere thought of a football-free Saturday afternoon enough to bring on a trough of black despair.

    Scientists and sociologists have, at this magazine's request, put there heads together and come up with the following five causes.

    

    Football: There is a deep-rooted passion for the game, born in the nostalgia and naivety of the halcyon 1970s -- pre-PC and pre-PlayStation/Wii and even, for some, pre-TV. The days of midweek European matches at an impossibly muddy Baseball Ground, a combative Billy Bremner, sublime Colin Bell and sideburned Ian Hutchison's long throw-ins.

    Whole days, no, whole summers, spent at the local Rec in your favourite club's strip -- bought then at some expense, not at knock-off prices from Bangkok street vendors, and often involving a long wait until opening the Christmas stocking, along with a new Subbuteo side -- teaming up with other aimless souls just to kick about for the love of the game.

    It was more innocent then, perhaps more wholesome, too, before the vulgar excesses and ugly cynicism of today's multi-billion dollar EPL sportsbusiness. You never entertained the notion that the dodgy bloke in the grubby Mac who "organised" the team may have ulterior motives for spending long, lazy hours with dozens of under-age boys.

    It was a time of The Big Match, with Brian Moore, and the weekly vigil for Match of the Day.  Schoolboy football followed as a given, moving up to college level, then works teams or occasional, informal kick-abouts.

    Careers blossomed, horizons and family units grew, but still the draw of soccer on a Saturday afternoon proved irresistible. New foreign assignments meant a new job, a fresh start ... and a new set of team mates in some far-flung corner of the world, where soccer is the main reserve currency.

    The BCs Soccer Section now boasts several dozen ageing footballers, most of whom fall asleep from midweek through to Friday night dreaming of scoring the winning goal, pulling off the crucial, last-ditch tackle or making a girth-defying flying save that earns the side maximum points at the top of the table.

    Saturday night's dreams are more about what might have been.

    Camaraderie: Big boys bonding; you can't beat it. Pre-match banter, onfield cussing, post-match, warmdown review, e-mail humour, on-tour "smack talk" ... (Ask CA. I figured he wanted to deal heroin).

    While the Club's two sides rightly are inclusive of the gentler sex, there is something about being part of a team that gets together regularly to play a sport for the love of the game. Add in the annual tour (Bangkok, Phuket, Bali so far), nights at the races, golf days, the annual dinner dance and occasional drinking evenings, and it is a hotbed for friendships and ties that cross geography, profession and nationality. These are honest ties that stand the test of time. Crossed paths years later will recall, over a refreshing beer or two, goals scored, sitters skied, cards awarded ... all with a tear in the eye, but a smile on the face.

    Fitness/Exercise: Our sedentary, air-conditioned lives cry out for a weekly jolt of fresh air to fill polluted lungs and healthy exercise to reinvigorate atrophying muscles. Lives, once threatened by a cramped daily commute, are reborn on this city-state's pleasant pastures green. A good run-out on a Saturday afternoon is supplemented by a midweek 5-a-side session. Gym memberships flourish, bicycles are bought and bodies, not so long ago destined for the sporting scrapheap, are honed and tanned. A six-pack is no longer just on a shelf at Cold Storage.

    BC Soccer Section Members swap fitness tips, gossip about the latest in MetroMan's healthcare products and admire, discreetly of course, fellow players' physiques in the changing rooms.

    The defibrilator remains, unpacked, pitch-side during games.

    Time Away From Loved Ones: It can be tough for the trailing spouse to traipse around the world for the sake of a partner's career. Expat footballers spend days on the road checking up on divisional performance and local managers in distant jungle zones and drumming up new business from Shanghai to Sydney. It may seem churlish then to criticize them for returning home late on a Friday and immediately packing their kit backs with an unashamed glee ready for Saturday's game.

    But it can be argued that this is good for marital harmony and paternal rectitude. For, during Saturday's game, in a hiatus in play, waiting for a corner, or for the ball to be retrieved from a ditch, or for an injured player to recover or ambulance to arrive, individual players spend time alone acknowledging the debt they owe to their nearest and dearest for allowing them this time to play, to bond ... to appreciate just how fortunate they are.

    Cultural exchanges: An expat's life is rich and rewarding and, high on the list of those rewards is the opportunity to experience new cultures. While the British Club can be an oasis of Little England in Southeast Asia, it is also a polyglot affair, and playing for the BC soccer team brings Members into regular contact with opponents from disparate local cultures. Where else other than at Bukit Timah Fields are words exchanged, euphemisms swapped and new phrases learnt with such enthusiasm.
     Backs are slapped, hands are shaken and, on a weekly basis, world peace is brought one tiny step nearer. Where else could ageing Europeans pick up the Korean for someone born out of wedlock, or the Malay for one who indulges in sexual self-gratification.