Football: Choo Seng Quee book launched to commemorate life of legendary Lions coach

Launch of the book titled Choo Seng Quee Singapore's Greatest Football Coach. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG

SINGAPORE – He was a man who could make 55,000 people go into raptures, or 11 grown men cry. He was also a master tactician who was ahead of his time – enforcing discipline, diet requirements and deep psychology to gain an edge.

Choo Seng Quee, or Uncle Choo as he is affectionately known, is still widely regarded as one of the best football coaches Singapore has ever produced and, to preserve his legacy, lawyer Reynold Pereira, 59, set about writing a book to commemorate the life of the legend.

At the launch of Uncle Choo: Singapore’s Greatest Football Coach at the Singapore Recreation Club (SRC) on Friday, when ex-Lions also gathered for a friendly at the Padang, he said: “It is my hope that it will help the younger generation realise that we can produce quality home-grown coaches, especially if they were given the right opportunities and encouraged to put forth their ideas to raise the standard of Singapore football.”

While Choo died in 1983 aged 68, Pereira managed to capture the essence of the man through extensive research and talking to former internationals who played for the famous coach. The book reveals nuggets which may otherwise remain unknown to those who were not from the same era.

Before becoming an influential leader, Choo was a solid 1.82m Straits Chinese Football Association defender, who helped Singapore win the 1937 and 1939 Malaya Cup and might have been selected by China for the 1940 Olympics had they not been cancelled due to World War II.

Interestingly, in a 1954 magistrates hearing, he would reveal to the court he acted as a spy for the British during the Japanese Occupation.

Choo, however, did not hide his ambitions to become a coach. Without any qualifications, he started coaching the Chinese Athletic Association when he was 25 and left indelible marks as the national coach of Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.

His motto was: “Give me the necessary facilities, equipment and time – and I will do the rest.”

Choo was by no means perfect, and had several run-ins with the Singapore Amateur Football Association (later known as Football Association of Singapore) because of his public criticisms. He was also known to be hard-handed with his training methods, and players once voted for him to step down in 1971.

Singaporeans will remember him most for pulling a nation together, especially in his fifth and final tenure, when he led the team to the 1977 Malaysia Cup title after a 12-year drought, making household names out of players like forward Quah Kim Song and going close to progressing to the next round of the World Cup qualifiers.

Quah, now 71 and scorer of the match winner in the 1977 final, said: “Shortly after Singapore became independent, we accidentally galvanised a young nation and united people of different races and backgrounds. “I’m really happy someone has come out to pay tribute to Uncle Choo with this long overdue book, which I feel is meaningful and necessary to share the stories about the local football fever which the younger generation never experienced.”

Another of Choo’s football sons is midfielder R. Suria Murthi, 65, who to this day still helps to clean his tomb on a regular basis.

He said: “Uncle Choo was also a great talent scout. He spotted me at Farrer Park when I was 12 and gave me jersey, shorts, socks and boots and told me one day I will play for Singapore for sure. I was skinny then, and he would also buy cod liver oil and mutton soup to build up my physique.

“For five years until I made it to the national team at 17, he trained me individually and helped me master kicking, trapping and passing. Every day, I would juggle the ball for two hours until I could keep the ball up 1,000 times in 10 minutes. Like many others, he instilled discipline and polished me into a better player.”

At the book launch, Senior Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua said he hopes to extend Uncle Choo’s legacy by inviting former players and coaches to be part of the scouting network for national football project Unleash The Roar.

He said: “As a small country, we cannot afford to miss out on talent. Your experience and eye for talent would be valuable in helping us identify youths with potential, and to guide them towards the national development centres and eventually be selected to the national team.

“We will run a series of Football Conversations... feedback from these engagements will be taken into consideration as we sharpen our UTR plans.”

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