The National A Division Boys Squash Championship is now on hold because the eligibility of one player from Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) is in question.
Bryan Koh, a Year 4 IB student, who turns 16 in September 08, was initially cleared to play in the A Division for ACS(I). A formal complaint was lodged by another competing junior college and Bryan was subsequently banned from playing in the A Division. At that point, ACS(I) had qualified for the A Division semi-final to meet Hwa Chong Institution. As a result of the appeals process, the whole championship is now on hold. May 2 was the original date of the boys’ A Division Final.
With concerns usually focused on over-aged players taking advantage of younger ones, this is one case where a younger than usual player is taking on and beating 17 and 18 year olds. Last year’s eligibility rules apparently state that A Division players need to be in the age range of 16 to 18 years old. A new set of eligibility rules were apparently published online in January 2008 stating that as long as the player is under 20 years of age, he or she can play in the A Division.
Said Bryan: “It’s been dragging on for a few weeks and it’s quite tiring for both the team and myself. We are still training four times a week. My school teacher broke the news to me. It wasn’t an exact ban. The championship was put on hold because of my case. I was told verbally at the C Division squash final and then a letter was sent two weeks later to my school. We sent two letters asking for an explanation, one letter from my father and one from the whole team.”
Bryan was in the national training squad but dropped out earlier this year to concentrate on his studies.
And how does he feel about the whole episode? “It’s emotionally draining because prior to the tournament, I was cleared to play. During the exam period, it was hard to concentrate because this thing was dragging on.”
Bryan is usually rated as a first or second seed for his school team which comprises one 17-year-old and five 18-year-olds.
When asked what his wish was for the final outcome, his request was simple. “I want to continue as per normal, I want to play for my A Division team.”
“…. But I guess MOE/CCAB had to appease the MESSES and rule agst us….”
messes as in masses,\ ( pun intended )
“….A larger number of people complained about ACSI’s use of year 5s ( 17 year olds) in the 2006 b div competitions. Did they consider that other schools were fielding players of a similar age?….. ”
D issue is never abt other schools fielding players who r sec 5 or even ‘sec 6’. If they do it , its perfectly legitimate. Ha! even if ACSI does it due to warranted circumstances, all will cry foul!!
In 2006,(1st IB Yr) they cldn’t make the ‘quorum’ for all A Div sports, ( their A cohort was abt 300+ ). Hence, they had to make a Hobson’s choice of getting d Yr 5 to engage in B Div games.
They didnt flout any rules. There was nothing agst it.
But I guess MOE/CCAB had to appease the messes and rule agst us.
Seems like its deja vu again.
Its time justice prevails!
The authority shld promote true sporting spirit, and Not do ‘ crowd anger management ‘.
Its ALWAYS others complaining agst us, NOT we agst others.
We are ever ready to take on the challenges and d impossible. Becos we believe all things are possible to those who BELIEVE. We dont cower and murmur. Tthis is the very attribute that sets d ACSians apart and soar!
THE BEST IS YET TO BE! TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!
If you all complain about losing to older players then so be it, i have nothing to say about that. but if you all complain because you lost to a younger player, that just makes no sense at all. It’s just plain embarassing for the complaining school to do such a thing, if they lost to a player 2 years younger than them then they should take a long hard look at how their team is performing.
AC wins medals not because they have some unseen magical formula for making winners. They simply train harder and have better innate skill than most. People complain they have an advantage because top athletes join them, and that all schools should have equal opportunity to take feeders. If your school is rubbish at sports then who on earth do you expect is going to join you? Think about it, if you’re a good player would you go to ACSI, with a tradition of sporting and academic excellence, or Generic School A, whose top achievement of the past ten years was qualification for the nationals.
Ling says that bryan has an unfair advantage because he’s played longer than older players who just picked up the sport. If your team is one with people who just picked up the sport you have no hope of reaching the finals anyway. It won’t just be bryan that will beat you, every one of the acsi team will, along with everyone from raffles and other such schools.
I found the rules of the tournament. i think it is rule 3.3 and 3.4 that should be questioned. There is no rule saying that a B div player can play the A div but 3.3. does state that year 1 – 4 has to play their respective age group which is c or b div.
3 DIVISION
3.1 Players shall be placed under 3 Divisions as follows:
A Division – under 20 years as on 1st Jan
B Division – under 17 years as on 1st Jan
C Division – under 14 years as on 1st Jan
3.2 All students in junior colleges and centralised institutes and IP (integrated programme) courses in independent schools must compete in the A Division (except under Rule 3.3).
3.3 Year 1 to Year 4 Students in the Integrated Programme (i.e. Through-Train Programme) will compete in their respective age group. Those in Year 5 (equivalent to JC 1) and Year 6 (equivalent to JC 2) must compete in the ‘A’ Division.
3.4 Students in the “C" Division may opt to represent the school in one higher division (“B" Division). However, once the option is made, he/she must remain in that particular game throughout the SSSC competition calendar for the year.
rules are from http://schoolsports.sg/sssc/squash/announcement
the whole issue is rather ridiculous in my opinion. The rules are stated in black and white that players under 20 will be allowed to play . In fact, its is rather unprofessional that the competition is on hold just because some competitors cry foul over perceived injustice when every participating team has the right to act within the boundaries of the competition rules. This issue should have been taken as feedback regarding next year’s guidelines and not have affected this year’s competition in anyway.
Rules are set for a reason. The integrity of the rules should have been questioned before the competition started. if a participating team /sportsman feels that the rules are inadequate, they should bring it up before the competition starts, or not even participate at all if they feel that they are unfairly treated. The integrity of the competition should only be questioned during the competition if the rules are broken blatantly and freely. Why should the players suffer for the organizing committee’s mistakes?
IMHO ACSI (and the ib program) does have an advantage over their competitors in the sporting arena. But it does not mean that it does not have disadvantages as well. Their advantages are mainly brought to light only because of the unique setup that they have, as well as the school’s sporting achievements( 8 finals in its first A div year i believe). ACSI’s success in the school sports competitions have only served to highlight these advantages that they hold. Unfortunately, the disadvantages of being a 6 form IB school is not discussed to any notable extent because the greater majority of students in this country come from the JC system.
A larger number of people complained about ACSI’s use of year 5s ( 17 year olds) in the 2006 b div competitions. Did they consider that other schools were fielding players of a similar age? That for team sports you need to field a minimum number of players and the school does not have enough ? Did they consider that fact that if players could not play in the B div or the A div then they would be wasting a year just to wait for their junior batch to be old enough so that a team had enough players? If the year 5s were banned from the b div in 2006, it would have hardly been an issue. After all in a sea of competitors from JCs and secondary schools , the voices of one school can hardly be heard.
theman, i am not from any schools you have implied.i think there must have got the wrong interpretation of what i said. i said i think bryan SHOULD BE ALLOWED to play. i said the conveyor is at fault for making everyone wait for its longggg decision.have you just diluted all i said to just one line about the schools not to be blamed?my school will not be at a disadvantage no matter what happens.
as i said before, theres never fairness in interschool sports. where is the even playing field? and TJ is complaining about lack of fairness? there are dsa peeps, there are exp. players. if we are really talking about real fairness here, there would be tournaments that ppl of the same calibre play, or tournaments where handicaps are given. THAT is fairness. Not just simply complaining about ACI being too good and what not.
Its becos ppl r jealous of ACSI thats y they dont like us.
They fault ACS for being outstanding in the academics and sports.
They cant stand the fact that ACSI owns and now rules……
First they complain we field Yr 5 in the B div. What abt others who hv repeating repeat students who competed with us before we had IB?
We showed sportsmanship by accepting such arrangements.
Now they complain we field younger players agst their olders ones.
They r afraid of humiliation shld they lose, and probability of them losing, extremely high.
This ppl shldnt be in sports if they cant take challenges.
Sports is challenging and pushing yourself beyond limits, taking it to a higher plane.
There is always someone in there who is trying to mess things for ACSI sports.
I wish the relevant authority ( govt officials ) wud intervene and ensure fairness and healthy competitiveness.
If we dun encourage our aces to compete on a higher plane at school level, how to hone their skills for the bigger arenas?
ling, its obvious ur from the complaining school or a school who is at a disadvantage in ur claim.
even though the people who would have benefitted from this would have been those with possible chances at top4( including the complaining school), i do not think that players who complained should be blamed. they complained because they felt that acs had an unfair advantage. they do not see that thats what sports is about. no matter how unwilling we are to accept it, they can never be competing on even fields in sports in interschools. we do not give handicaps.
Indeed bryan is stronger. he might not be stronger just because he trains harder or is talented( he might be, im not saying he is not) its just because he started younger, and has been in overseas competitions, more experienced and definitely better than his older competitors. other jc students who do not have squash in their secondary schools are already at a disadvantage when they play students who have prior experience. do they now have to be disadvantaged more with more cases of bryan? he should be the only exception.
Being from ACS, we were taught that winning is a very large part of our school culture in any sport. Naturally we will field our best athletes if possible. I agree with the point that being from ACS puts a large target on your back. People from other schools will be out there to beat your or at least put you down. Though it is agreed that this is a problem faced by the elite sporting schools, looking in from the ‘outside’, I can now see why having the badge of ACS on your chest makes you a marked man.
If this is just a one-off case about a younger individual trying to take part in the ‘bigger boys league’, then something must be very wrong with the decision to ban this talented individual from taking part in his respective sport. There is no clear advantage that he has achieved by taking part in the A Division. It just goes to show that he is capable to take on his older counterparts. I feel that this should be applauded instead of slapping him with a ban.
Acsfan, its apparent from your name that you love aci. In your point that Year 5 IB students are just like Normal Tech or retained students, i would concede that that is a valid point for other sports. However, this is not the case for squash. With only six reputable schools taking part in B div squash( which all do not have retainees nor normal tech students), it seemed that ACS did have an unfair advantage. Since its the past, we shall then not dwell on it here.
Some people might be flaming ACS because they have been winning titles from rival schools. They dont target HCI or Raffles because unlike ACSI, the feeder IP do not belong to the same school. The junior players from their IP programme cannot play for the A div. I hence agree with magician that IB students should wait for their turn to play for the A div.
Bryan was told he couldnt play in A div, and hence he subsequently wanted to play in B div, which was rejected. No reason was given. ACS then lost their title for the first time in ten years with a close 3-2. Is this not the conveyor’s lapse? With the ban now on bryan not being allowed to play in the A div is a further mistake on the conveyor’s part. Bryan should be allowed to play and after him, there shall be no exceptions. Bryan should be made an exceptional case for it was the rules, and the conveyor who allowed him to play. Rules should be made that the age should be from 16-20.
The decision from the conveyor took almost three weeks, and despite the squash season supposedly being able to end early among all sports, it has now taken a toll on all the players involved, not just acsi. ive seen my school team’s morale drop, and their frustration. No formal apology was also made known to the school’s players and i am extremely disappointed. Why do everyone have to suffer and receive no explanation?
for me personally it’s the loophole in the system. most jcs do not have an ip which brings the secondary sch and jc under one roof, unlike acsi. thus acsi is just using the age ruling to their advantage.
this prob is being raised now because bryan is a very strong player. if bryan was not so much a threat, the issue would not be of concern. yet i think this will be a long-term prob since acsi has been typically strong in certain b div sports, thus in the future the competition in the a divs will become more unbalanced. the a divs is for the jc students. u want to take part, wait for ur time to come.
well at least acsi respected the integrity of the sport by fielding their senior team of bowlers for the a div tournament – no u-17 players were competing..
i dont see a problem with bryan being cleared to play for his A div team. what? are the older boys afraid of losing to a junior player? cummon man this aint the correct spirit we want to see in sports. u see a challenge, rise up to it, not try to twist and bend the rules to get ur opponents disqualified -.-
anyway to neutral: for the record, ri and rjc are TWO separate schools even though they’re in IP.
its like…the rugby side…ppl r complaining abt acsi….now squash here…ppl also complaining…wads wid spore!!! y keep targetting acsi man…they hav trained hard 2 be where they r at e spore sport arena! its nt like they r taking drugs or wadever…they juz train harder than other teams…so stop targetting them!
y issit i dun see ppl targetting HCI or Raffles…all hav Sec and JC feeder and they also hav IP wad….
ppl juz dun like acsi…haha
Hi janice, the thing is, acs ib year 4 and acsi ib year 5 & 6 is ONE school. not like the other jc’s where their secondary schools are totally different schools. that is one point and secondly, its not even a point made when you say jc’s dont have younger strong players, thats weird
When acsi had year 5 players in B division two years ago, people complained that we had overaged players. However, many neighbourhood schools have secondary 5 players who being part of the Normal Academic stream are still eligible to play in B division.
Now, when acsi has unaderaged players who play, people still complain. If acsi lost in the first round, would people still complain??
This is the opportunity cost of success for acsi. People should give credit when credit is due. Accept defeat gracefully.
PS: Acsi year 5 cohort is around 400 strong, less than half that of most JCs.
Hey, what about other jcs who don’t have sec 3 and 4 students to push up even if they are good enough. we are at a disadvantage. then they should allow Jcs to adopt feeder secondary schools to make it fairer. How come there were 2 different set of rules or does every school sport able to set their own rules.
but according to this article, the eligibility rules are “apparently published”. There must be some uncertainty over the rules because if not there wouldnt be any question over bryan’s eligibility to play. I feel that they should allow younger students to compete in the A division because not all schools with the integrated prog have enough students and talent to compete in the B division. Thus, we should not deprive these IP students a chance to represent their school just because of a lack of students. Put them in the A divsion, if they are good enough, then so be it. They do not have any advantage over the bigger JC students.
Bryan should be allowed to play. As the new set of eligibility rules state, he’s under 20 and hence i dont see the problem. If he has an innate talent/trains harder than other players who are older than him and as such have had a longer time to train/gain experience, then its their fault and bryan should not, in any case be the one bearing the consequences. I’ve stated my case, and hopefully, someone in the right place will read this, realise the folly of disallowing bryan to play and overturn the decision.