Foul!

As published in Malay Mail today Going Nuts By Graig Nunis   MERDEKA is just over a month away and Malaysia Day a further 16 days down the road. To most Malaysians Aug 31 is the bigger celebration and it was only since 2010 that Malaysia Day became a public holiday — even though this is when we truly became the nation we are today following the inclusion of Sabah and Sarawak. Shouldn’t we be celebrating this on a grander scale? So it is not hard to sympathise with the organisers of the Sarawak Freedom and Independent Walk on July 22 who are pressing for the state to make that date a public holiday to celebrate the day Sarawak was granted independence by the British colonial rulers in 1963. However, as usually is the case when it involves east Malaysians, many have jumped on the bandwagon and there were reports some wanted to misuse the event to talk about Sarawak seceding from Malaysia. And as usual, the police, led by IGP Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, hav...

I had on Tuesday highlighted about the national Under-16 team playing as Frenz United FC in a friendly match against Liverpool Under-17 team in my column Haresh Says, published in The Malay Mail . Having read the commentary, The Malay Mail correspondent SS Dhaliwal checked with FA of Malaysia (FAM) general-secretary Hamidin Amin as tweeted by Dhaliwal: On Thursday, Hamidin painted a different picture as he was quoted by Mailsport saying: “We endorsed the idea of using the Frenz jersey. It is not a big deal. FAM and Frenz have an agreement should any untoward incidents occur too." Read the full report here . While FAM may think it is "not a big deal", their other stakeholders - the Education Ministry - are not impressed at all. And those in the ministry are also not amused with the name dropping, as some quarters had been using, or rather misusing, deputy prime minister cum education minister Muhyiddin Yassin's name. I wonder if Muhyiddin knows abou...

Obviously it started with international football. How Sir Alex Ferguson seemed rather bitter after Manchester United were held to a 1-1 draw against Tottenham Hotspur, how Liverpool's ' SAS ' combination of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge saw the 5-0 demolition of Norwich and Pep Guardiola 's move to German giants Bayern Munich. Nevertheless, the main highlight of the night - to me that is - was Malaysia's 158th position in the Fifa ranking and military officers seen at the stadium in Kota Bharu during the recent Kelantan-Darul Takzim FC match. It was a good discussion between football coach by day, club manager by night Craig Morraies , long time football pundit and radio star Ross Yusof, host Roshan Narayan - who is adjusting to married life (hehe)- The Star's Nelsen Ng and yours truly on another episode of Bola@Mamak . It has been awhile since I was invited to the show due to my recent working commitments. Looking forward to another great discussion...

Let's ditch the serious stuff and talk about Liverpool. It's either you love them or you hate them. There are many stories about Liverpool and the term YNWA. Rumour has it that once upon a time a fan was bloody bored watching Liverpool play that he wrote to the club saying their performance was nothing but a big fat YAWN. Being a typical bloke from Liverpool, he misspelt the word as YNWA instead. Then someone told me YNWA means You'll Never Win Again. Before I get hate mails (but I trust Liverpool fans are rather civilised compared to other devilish fans), the above stories are not true. But what I do know is that Liverpool is creating an impact around the globe - by brainwashing the younger generation (sic). Don't play play. The picture on the right is the crest for a school (Gurukul Public School) in India while the logo on the left is from a kindergarten in Hong Kong . Don't be surprised if a new school in Kampung Boyan , Taiping could have a similar badge. This...

Drumroll please Phagatvinder Singh (left) from Ampang and Mohd Aizat Sharif Fisalluddin from Kota Damansara! They each received a Premier ticket (RM258) for the Malaysia v Liverpool match at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil this evening (kick off 5.45pm). Here are the answers to the questions - as can be found on Liverpoolfc.tv 1. Liverpool has won the Premier League 18 times. 2. John Houlding & William Barclay . Liverpool FC was formed on March 15, 1892 at Holding's house in Anfield Road. Barclay was the first seretary-manager and suggested they should go with a new name - Liverpool. 3. Guangdong 3 Liverpool 4 Many thanks to those who wrote in and emailed your answers. There was a healthy response despite the short notice. It was all done in a sporting manner and purely for fun. Your support is much appreciated. HD says: Hoping to run more contests in the future.