Let us first define what is a team. A team is a group of individuals working together to achieve a common goal.

This is our common goal.

The CJ’s Cup. It has been the SUSS School of Law football team’s desire for the past two years.

Let me give you some context as to what the CJ’s Cup is all about. It is a charity football tournament that raises funds for the Yellow Ribbon Fund – SAL STAR Bursary (Skills Training Assistance to Restart). Starting in 2024, the Singapore After-Care Association’s Volunteer After-Care Programme will be added as a beneficiary.

The funds raised are used to help those incarcerated with their reintegration back to society. It is something meaningful and I kindly invite you to read up about the Singapore After-Care Association and the work that they do. You can simply do a google search on them and you should be able to find out about this organisation. I have always believed that when someone has paid his or her dues, a clean slate should be their default position in our society. An even more gracious act would be to assist in their reintegration.

As for the tournament, it is a futsal tournament. 5-a-side. The law fraternity would send in their teams and so would the 3 local law schools. It would be 4 groups in a round-robbin format. The top team in each group would advance to the semi-finals. The winners of those semi-finals would go on to play in the finals for a chance to lift the CJ’s Cup trophy.

These were the groupings for this year’s tournament.

For a second year in a row, we were in the same group as WongPartnership. The rest of the teams were new opponents to us.

Also, let me put some context as to how far the team has grown. Last year we barely scrapped through enough players to form a team. This year, we had more than enough players to send two teams. However, we could only send one. That being said, we need new players as many of the players from this year’s team will have graduated by the time next year’s tournament comes around. So if you are someone with a passion to join the SUSS School of Law football team, please feel free to step forward and come for our regular games.

Now back to the event…

According to our captain Adam, we all had to have 7 hours of sleep and we were to meet at 730 am at Kovan McDonald’s for breakfast.

The team was all fired up for the tournament. A picture is worth a thousand words but a well crafted video is worth a million more. I will leave you to gauge the team’s enthusiasm and passion for yourself!

The tournament started with a charity match between the Law Society Women’s Team + Fandi Ahmad and the all-star SAL team which included Minister Edwin Tong.

For those of you who do not know who Fandi Ahmad is…

Ziz was seriously star struck. I instead wanted to ask Fandi why did he not invite Sundram to join him?

Imagine this at the Kovan futsal pitch.

Minister Edwin Tong was a decently good player but his team were no match for Fandi Ahmad! The match ended 1-1 but the stipulation was that if a team fielded a female player or a player above the age of 55 then that team would be awarded an additional goal in the event of a draw. The Law Society Women’s Team had 4 females. Maybe they could have an added stipulation where if a team fielded a player from a Malaysia Cup winning team then it would negate any other benefit from other stipulations. But heck. This was for charity. The Law Society Women’s Team won, we all got to see Fandi Ahmad play and all is fine and dandy.

Fandi could still capture the crowd’s attention. How we miss the glory days of Singapore football.

Ok it is time to get serious!

Our first match was against PD Legal. Our fellow school mate Vignesh is playing for PD Legal. He was part of our team but his firm entered the competition and he was asked to play for them. It was weird playing against our fellow schoolmate.

The match ended in a nil-nil draw. It was a disappointing start to the tournament but we needed to pick ourselves up quickly as the next match against Dentons Rodyk was just around the corner.

The subsequent match against Dentons was a 1-0 loss. They had a player above the age of 55 and hence we had to go for the win and we were left with a huge gaping hole at the back in the dying moments of the match. We lost with almost the very last kick of the match.

Our only solution? To win all 3 matches and to win them by considerable margins.

This was the story of the team’s fightback… I will use sign posts to make my story telling more palatable to the readers (this is to show Prof Cheng that I learned something during his Trial Advocacy class).

Match Number 3: Against Yellow Ribbon Fund

Perhaps the most important goal was scored by none other than Ziz! Ziz was starting for the first match and if we drew with the team from the Yellow Ribbon Fund, we would have won the match by virtue of having fielded a female in our team. However, Ziz had other ideas. She muscled her way through a crowd of players and when the opposing keeper fumbled the ball, she was on hand to guide the ball into an empty net. It was so early in the match and suddenly the team started clicking.

Here is her goal in all its glory. Unedited footage.

If you would like to know how early in the match that was, here is the start of the match leading up to her goal.

Subsequently, Captain Adam scored the team’s second goal and SUSS School of Law was off the blocks.

One win in the bag. We needed another two to qualify.

Match Number 4: Against K&L Gates Straits Law

This was the record breaking match. We ran out 6-0 winners. From what I saw, this was the largest winning margin in the whole tournament. So apparently my team mates are capable of playing like Germany against Brazil in the 2014 World Cup. If you do not remember that match, Germany ran out 7-1 winners against Brazil in the semi-finals of the 2014 World Cup. Oh and that World Cup was hosted in Brazil.

That 7-1 took slightly over 90 minutes. Our 6-0 took just over 8 minutes. How we did it? Beats me. Maybe we took over Liverpool’s gegenpressing spirit because it was evidently lacking in their match against West Ham later in the day.

Scorers for that match were:

Adam (2 goals), Nic, Sheikh, Lester and Salihin.

Here is the match in full (well almost).

Match Number 5: Against Wong Partnership

Once again, Wong Partnership stood in our way of progressing out of the group. They topped the group in last year’s edition as well. The math was simple. We had 7 points and they had 9. Beat them and we had 10 and would top the group. We simply had to win. Alternatively, if Ziz played the whole match, and the match ended in a draw, we would also have won the match by virtue of that special stipulation if there were a female within the team.

Unfortunately, we lost 1-0.

We missed out narrowly on making the semi-finals. We were essentially just one goal away. If we had prevented that goal or we had equalised, we would have made it.

Nonetheless, it was a valiant effort. We will work towards trying to bring the CJ’s Cup back to the SUSS School of Law next year. The team is looking for new players. Players who are willing to step up and try to bring a moment of glory to our beloved law school. If you can kick a football decently well and would like to join the team for our regular football sessions, please contact me or any of my fellow teammates.

All you need to learn is our team cheer. Don’t worry. It ain’t too difficult…

Finally, our team captain Adam is stepping down. Here are some words from the captain.

A captain should lead by example and should be an individual who is there to serve the team. I have been in many teams and I have also been in leadership positions. I would like to say that Adam has been an excellent captain. Without him I do not think the football team would be this close. We are not only a team that plays football together but we are a team that spends time outside of football together as well. An example of this would be the fact that apparently we are going to JB for a go kart session in a fortnight’s time (when you have Lester in your team there is always a need for speed). It is not easy to lead a team of future lawyers. There are always opinions and often strong ones. It takes a great deal of maturity and charisma to do so.

To the rest of the team, by the next edition of the CJ’s Cup, many of the current team and I will not be part of the team. Please follow up this year’s performance with an even better one. The alumni will always have the team in our hearts and we will always do our best to support the team during the tournaments.

Who said law school was all about studying?

It is also about having the occasional makan together with your football team!