The Reds are HERE!

Liverpool fans shout out loud!!

Never one to be a fan of football except for the once in every 4 years World Cup, I was dragged, kicking n screaming all the way to the friendly match in Bukit Jalil on 23 July 2011.

Ok I may have exaggerated a fair bit. I was actually quite happy to go there but only after knowing that this is the very first time Liverpool team are ever on Malaysian soil.

The reason for their absence was because their previous corporate sponsor for many many years was Carlsberg beer.

Beer being lumped together with cigarettes have long been banned from appearing in any media advertisements (tv, radio, newspaper, billboards etc) in Malaysia and as such Liverpool since having Carlsberg logo right smack in the centre of their jersey suffer the same ban.

This was not the case when I was young. I remember watching loads of blockbuster movies sponsored by none other than cigarettes company and Dunhill was the most prestigious of them all having the tagline of "Dunhill... Gaya, mutu, keunggulan"... see the fact that I can still remember their tagline shows their effectiveness.

The cigs companies can advertise through many means and I even found them in my old bowling score paper. Gosh I can believe I am saying this but cigarettes ads are SOOO YESTERDAY!

Hey my colleague just mentioned that even fast food are banned from advertising in the media... Wow!!

Anyway coming back to Liverpool it is good that their corporate sponsor is now Standard Chartered Bank so the match on 23 July was overall good as there were a total of 9 goals that day.

For a not-a-football fan the more goals the merrier cos it meant loads of opportunity to take photos and videos of screaming, shouting and singing fans (when both teams, any teams scored cos generally any malaysian will cheer for the Malaysian team as well).

I have no complains saved:-
1) the 1st half and beginning of 2nd half was a tad bit boring with the score being tied at 1-1.
I even managed to find the time for toilet break so you can imagine how un-exciting the match was.

2) the organizers did not allow any outside drinks / food including the H2O which I bring in my own tupperware... so after 2 hour plus of sitting in the hot stadium (we were there early), any human being with blood running in their system would be thirsty.

The only option? Buy carbonated drinks sold by the approved food n beverage sellers. To make matters worst they sell it in small cups with loads of ice at RM2! Money suckers!!

Food sold are only FRIED finger food and burgers! Ycuk! Having just gone for blood test, I got to watch my cholesterol level so fried food are a definite no-no!!

3) leaving the stadium was unbelievably difficult and they are many factors which contributed to it:-

i) even though the stadium is equipped with many gates (which can be opened), they choose to open only 2 gates at each section. And mind you the gates are just double the size of regular door.


ii) once out of the gates, our freedom were shortlived as again the organizer rented too many temporary booths to vendors and agains these booths reduced the walking space to just a mere 10 feet.

So can you imagine how cramped everyone was with 80,000 people leaving the stadium at the same time!

iii) later we face the same crowd trying to cross the same little bridge connecting the main stadium with the hockey stadium. To avoid this crowd, we then divert to use the main road to get to Endah Parade.

In doing so we passed by the Bukit Jalil LRT station and was bewildered and slightly amused to see the gates of the station being lowered. Reason? -- they just cannot cope with the number of commuters and the way they do it? Close the station! LOL

I can only imagine the frustrations of the football fans who thought that by taking the LRT they can avoid the jam... only to be denied entry. Kakakaka...

So the next time Liverpool is here, I hope Standard Chartered will continue to be their sponsor and the event organizer and LRT operator will think of a solution to these minor hiccups!