By Ian Chew
The huge crowd watching the game between the Slingers and Purefoods. There hasn’t been a crowd like this at the Singapore Indoor Stadium for a sports event in a long while. (Photo ©Â Les Tan/Red Sports)
It’s a sad fact – but you would probably never see this happen among Singaporean supporters.
Midway through the third quarter as Slingers’ Filipino point guard Al Vergara stood on the free throw line, the near capacity Indoor Stadium crowd of mostly Filipino expatriates rose as one with chants of “RP! RP!”. RP by the way stands for Republic of Philippines. (I can still feel the goosebumps as I write this.)
I remembered turning in amazement to Shamir from the Today newspaper (who was also quite dumbfounded beside me) and saying, “Have you seen anything like this before?”
The deafening roar of the 5,500-strong crowd continued to reverberate around the stadium each time their favorite Purefoods team threatened to embark on a mini-rally. Even the Slingers looked slightly shell-shocked at fervent support for the visiting team.
“It’s kind of strange to hear boos ringing in our home game when one of our players step up to take the free throw,” confided Darren Ng in an earlier interview.
But when facing any visiting team from the Philippines, the Slingers had better get used to that treatment.
“We are extremely passionate about basketball back in the Philippines, especially about the PBA league and these scenes are common,” explained one Filipino fan to me later. “In fact, if you manage to get Ginebra Kings (the most popular PBA team in the Philippines) down to the indoor stadium, I would even be willing to pay $50 for the ticket!”
Yet the fanatical Filipino crowd occasionally reared its ugly head as well. It happened when Purefoods head coach Ryan Gregorio got into a shouting match with one of the Slingers fans during the fourth quarter. That prompted the entire Filipino contingent seated above to rain down not only their abuse, but objects as well at the hapless fan! Fortunately, the visiting team managed to calm down the fans or I doubt the stadium security could have done much to hold back a full-scale riot.
Slingers’ Managing Director Bob Turner is taking everything in his stride.
“I think the atmosphere is unbelievable tonight and it bodes well for the Slingers team as we prepare to embark on our ASEAN league next year,” he enthused. “Hopefully, we can get our locals to support us in a greater way.”
The Slingers head coach was also excited about the record fans turnout.
“It was a fantastic atmosphere at the stadium and the players were sometimes playing on adrenaline off the energy from the crowd… It’s great for basketball!” he said.
Would someone pass the message to the Singaporean fans?
Chris Daniel of the Slingers lays up for two. Slingers found themselves in the odd position of getting booed by the mainly Filipino crowd while playing at home. (Photo © Les Tan/Red Sports)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE0i1SvrJJs
For some idea of the passionate Filipino crowd, see how worked up they get in the final few minutes of the fourth quarter when a fan got involved in a shouting match with the Purefoods coach!
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love basketball, one of the sports i really like playing.
[…] Red Sports reader, going by the alias watanabe, who was following the story here, wrote: “i think ripping photo belong (sic) to others is juz very […]
Thanks Junwei…yeah, finally I got the credit that I needed to have. Though I can’t read Chinese, that’s good enough. I should thank Mr. Bob Turner and Cheryl Ng for that…and of course, the Slingers, for giving us a good game last Sunday against Beijing Aoshen.
Hey Francis,
I think SPH finally got wind that the photos belonged to you. Your photo for the latest game involving the Slingers and Beijing Aoshen was printed in Monday’s Lianhe Zaobao and they finally credited you for it. 😀
[…] read about the 5,500-strong Filipino crowd that lit up the Slingers basketball challenge, I was expecting yet another massive turnout for a match-up between the Slingers and Beijing […]
sad to hear about what happened to francis. the sports editor of both newprints should have been remorseful enough to call the guy himself or even bothered to email him. also, mistakes that deal with intellectual property should be taken seriously.
like what les said that folks dont appreciate the money and effort that go in getting photographs. these photographers invest a lot on their gadgets, and they should not take these for granted.
i really feel ashamed that this thing has happened here in singapore to a non-singaporean. the fact that singapore is strict about law enforcement, and the fact they are from the media, they should put no room for errors. or if ever they do, they should amend it.
That’s great that they bothered to credit you and even send a pdf! Incredible service. Nothing like that ever happened to me in Singapore.
got an email today from a sports writer for a newpaper in Australia who also asked for a photo for one of the Slingers game. and am happy to say that they credited the photo to my name, and even sent me a pdf file of the publication.
i really appreciate the effort done by the sports writer and i believe this is the professional way of doing things, especially if the photo was not paid for. 🙂
This year PBA star appearing in Singapore this year, Arwind Santos, KG, Kerby, J Yap and even Alvin Patrimonio gave a guests apperance…
Who’s next? TNT? Magnolia?
Would love to see Captain Hook, Jimmy Alapag, Danny Siegle and Danny Ildefonso..
Slingers, u hear me???? Best made Slingers in to the PBA!!!!
i think ripping photo belong to others is juz very unpro.
Talking about crowd. I am happy that Les has experienced hearing thousands of people shouting “Defense” live…and yes, its really amazing. Wait till you get Ginebra play here in Singapore…not only you would get a full stadium, its gonna be the first time you’ll gonna hear live a big crowd shouting the team’s name “Ginebra”. It’s the most famous team in the Philippines, but am not a big fan of the team itself because I was a Purefoods fan. “Was”, because am not much updated of the PBA, so I don’t know much of teams now…or who’s playing for which team.
In the PBA, I would normally go for the team of the players I like.
Hi Les, me too…see you then on Sunday… 🙂
Look forward to meeting you at the next game. 😉