By Yvonne Yap/Red Sports
Singapore Indoor Stadium, Sunday, October 18, 2009 – 2,212 fans came to watch the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) game between the Singapore Slingers and the Philippine Patriots last Sunday. The Slingers won 74-69 to register their second consecutive victory.
As expected, a large number of fans were from the basketball-mad country of Philippines although for the first time, there were enough Slinger fans in the house who made their presence felt with audible chants of “Defense! Defense!” during the breathtaking final quarter.
For some first-time fans, it was an exciting game and the Slingers performed up to expectations.
“[The Slingers are] quite good, but there are a lot of Filipinos!” Red Sports ticket winner Kenneth Tan commented about the atmosphere in the stadium.
The Filipinos certainly made their presence felt as they thronged the East and West stands.
“Coming for the game is like supporting the Philippines …. I think they did great,” said 12-year-old Faye from the Philippines, who is studying in Singapore. It was her first ABL game.
Another Filipino catching the team for the first time was Julius, 25, who has been in Singapore for a year. He agreed that the number of Filipinos present at the game was overwhelming, but praised the Slinger fans for being “very loud” even though they were outnumbered.
“It was quite good, but they [Patriots] could have been better, maybe work on their free throws and more trainings,” said Julius who was a basketballer back in the Philippines and was impressed with the Patriots’ performance.
Fans don’t watch the game sitting down … (Photo 1 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
… and make their feelings known to all. (Photo 2 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
The home crowd support for the Slingers was better this time, with the fans giving the Patriots supporters a run for their money in the volume department. (Photo 3 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
The Patriots supporters were definitely not intimidated and rose up to protest every time there was a dubious call against their team. (Photo 4 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
The crowds get animated every time the Slinger girls give out free t-shirts. (Photo 5 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
Actor couple Allan Wu and Wong Li-lin (extreme left) were present to watch the match. (Photo 6 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
The Slingers huddle for a team “oosh” after the game. (Photo 7 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
Wong Wei Long poses with a fan … (Photo 8 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
while teammate Hong Wei Jian autographs a fan’s shirt. (Photo 9 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
But the favourite was still Marcus Ng, with scores of fans (mostly women) lining up to have a picture taken with him. (Photo 10 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
The ‘MISS’ sign makes its appearance once again. He should do one for the Slingers that says ‘SCORE’. (Photo 11 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)
The crowd was comparatively better this time with 2,212 showing up. Only 1,100 showed up last week for the game against the Barracudas. (Photo 11 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)
Kenneth Tan (right) won a pair of tickets from the Red Sports reader contest and shared it with his friend, Warren Huang. (Photo 13 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)
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@j When they had many foreign players, they had there were not the “Singapore” Slingers, only expats come to watch them. Now we have the Asean league and you’re saying we need more foreign players. I rather stop pondering about all this small little things and support the team that we can call our own.
i think the slingers will be more attractive with more foreign players like last time when they had mike helms
The crowds will come eventually when the Slingers start winning. Anyway, the reason why the locals’ cheerings were softer is because we were sitting higher up. From the video by Ian Chew, I could hear the locals cheering/ thundering in the 4th quarter.
@moh – I remember the Philips Cup – I was the official photographer! Great atmosphere, that one.
I think the Slinger home crowd will be around 2,000 on average for the season.
If they make the playoffs, it may go up.
I think its a combination of apathy and only wanting to watch superstars. You remember before the slingers first season they had the phillips basketball championship at the SIS – they had Argentina, Spain, Serbia come down with ginobli, darko, gasol etc. The SIS was packed to the rafters.
Basically, the crowd isn’t going to come – Singaporeans or no Singaporeans, unless of course there are big-name players everyone has heard of.
We have a lot of basketball fans in Singapore. Apparently, some of my friends were still ignorant that Slingers were playing with a complete team of foreigners, that is why they do not come down to support. I think the Slingers really need publicity, not just in websites, but the regular media to popularise the team. This is a home team. This is a team worth rooting for. But most people still do not know it exists.
Photos 10 and 11 are fab! Nicely done, JW and Van.
Yeah 2212 is pretty sad if you compare it with say the annual Singapore Badminton Open at the same venue – and especially during the late-90s the Konica Cup could fill up at least 3/4 of the SIS! True that they may be world-class badminton players competing, but I always thought team sports would have a bigger pull, moreover with Singaporeans participating in it. What a land of ironies it is here!
2212 seems low. From all my experience gauging the crowds for the past few years, it felt like around 3500
Double the number of fans, but is it because of the Filipino crowd? Will there be double the number of Singaporeans/ Slinger fans anytime soon?
I really like the miss sign, we should come up with more banners, although the guys at turbanizer had the best position behind the basket. Maybe Redsports can make one too XD
The Aussie boy in picture 9 is really cute – he comes for the games every week and enthusiastically runs around for signatures! Forgot to ask for his name, though I found out last week that he’s born in Sydney, dad was from my Melbourne but the family is now living here!
Haha.