Specials

Just as we are about to embark on the 2nd half of the 2024/25 SPL season, I thought it would be a good opportunity to do a mid-season statistical review of Sailors’ performances so far, and attempt to provide some insights into what we can expect in the 2nd half of the season. If you have read recent SFT articles, you would have realized that Eddy and I have been manually tracking SPL stats from this season (because nobody else seems to be doing it). Now that we have half a season worth of data, we can attempt to draw some meaningful conclusions from this data set through developing a ‘Justice Table’. (Editor’s note: Please note also that xG stats are taken from sofascore.com – Chin Heng painstakingly tracks them every game to come up with this table) Justice Table – Simi Lai Eh? Football is a low-scoring, high-variance game where the better team doesn’t always win. There is a lot of luck involved in each game, so the actual SPL table contains plenty of ‘noise’. Unlucky finishing, a bad offside call, or an unfortunate deflection all have an impact on the actual result of a game. What we attempt to do with the Justice Table is to remove such variance from the equation and find out what the league table would look like in a world where teams were ranked based on their performances alone. Methodology As we demonstrated in earlier articles, it is possible to do a Monte Carlo Simulation of each match using raw xG data of each shot that occurred in the game. In order to generate a Justice Table from xG data: What is xG? xG is essentially just the probability of a goal being scored from a particular shot, hence using xG to generate a league table removes the element of luck from a result. In our last game against Tampines, Shawal scored from 2 chances of 0.04 and 0.12 xG respectively, allowing us to escape with a point. However, simulations showed that we were extremely lucky to get anything from the game, with Tampines winning 87.3% of simulations and a draw occurring only 10.2% of the time. On another day, those 2 Shawal chances could have gone wide or be saved by the keeper and we would now be level on points with Tampines. Note that there are some flaws in the xG metric, most notably that it ignores the game state. A team that scores a goal early on may choose to sit back and defend that lead, inevitably generating less xG for the rest of the game and conceding more xG, making the game appear closer than it actually was. The xG concept also assumes that all players have roughly the same finishing ability, and what differentiates a good striker from an average one is their ability to get themselves into positions of good xG quality in the first place. However, this model still passes the ‘eye test’ as we often expect to see better teams dominating a game by generating more and better-quality chances, which in turn accumulates higher xG and expected points to quantify their dominance. Results With the methodology outlined above, the 2024/25 mid-season Justice table looks like this: Some observations: Conclusion I think we can expect the title race to go all the way to the last few games of the season, with Tampines unfortunately being slight favourites despite being 2nd in the league right now. However, there are still a number of variables that could alter the equation for the 2nd half of the season: fatigue from continental games and the AFF championship, mid-season transfers, and squad depth could all play an important role in how the rest of the season shapes up. (Editor’s Note: An interesting point to note also is how Tampines makes use of the extra foreigner slot when Kyoga becomes Singaporean and thus frees up a slot. If they have the budget to get someone with true quality, things might be interesting) Hopefully, when 24th May 2025 rolls around, it will be the team in blue lifting the SPL trophy! (Editor’s Note: EH OH EH OH) Written by Tan Chin Heng Edited by Eddy Hirono If you’d like to support the work we do here at SailorFanTalk, you may want to visit https://ko-fi.com/sailorfantalk and leave us a tip!

If you haven’t watched the video for Champions in Blue yet, here you go! Clubs working with artists to come up with songs is not a new phenomenon. When you think of club, and you think of song, your mind immediately goes to “You’ll Never Walk Alone“. It is perhaps the most famous example of an anthem being sung aloud by fans before games. That song is tied to Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund, and Celtic, among others, and I don’t know about you, even though I don’t support any of those clubs, hearing it sung out loud does send chills down my spine. In fact, that song is so tied to Liverpool’s identity that those very words of the title are written in wrought iron on the gates of Anfield Stadium. A Song Written Specifically For a Club However, of course, that song was written as a tune from a musical on Broadway, and so it wasn’t birthed as a football song. It wasn’t until Gerry and the Pacemakers (a Merseyside band) did a cover version in the 1960s that it became adopted by Liverpool as their anthem. So are there examples of songs written specifically for a club? Sure, there are. Let’s start right at home (and with a dash of Japan). Hougang Hools recorded “Hougang Sampai Mati“ (Malay for “Hougang Til’ I Die“) and the song has a lot of edge, with a super catchy chorus. Composed and performed by the fans, it combines rock, emotion, and a dash of humour. It is played during Hougang home games at the final whistle. Geylang International FC have “We Are the Mighty Eagles“. This was also performed by a fan called Remy, who describes himself as a new fan of the club. It is catchy in parts and just like Hougang Sampai Mati, you will hear it over the speakers at GIFC games. And then now on to Japan – Albirex Niigata have my personal favourite, “Believe”. I like the song so much I even left this comment there sometime back – Oops, please don’t lynch me, but it’s a proper rock track with anime vibes, mixed in with crowd chants to really give it that stadium feel. Albirex in Singapore of course use this song as well, playing it at their home games to get the atmosphere going. It’s fair to say that music has long had that power to get the crowd excited and hyped up for a game. It can also be a tremendous bonding tool, uniting a bunch of strangers in song. The Crew had thus long thought about writing a song, but we were short on inspiration. If you ever meet me in person, I’d be happy to show you some early drafts we came up with, which pale in comparison to “Champions in Blue“. So how did this song come about? Let me tell the story from my POV. A Long Long Time Ago – There Was Brandon Khoo The title is not a dig at Brandon Khoo’s age. Though facts are facts, he is old. But this is an important section of the article. You’ll see. Before I talk about how the club approached me to discuss possibly getting a song done, I have to introduce yall to Brandon Khoo. Who is Brandon Khoo, you ask? Well click the link and find out! He’s basically Singapore’s best drummer la huh. When I first saw Brandon Khoo in the stands of a Sailors game sometime back, I remember thinking to myself that he looked really familiar. But I just couldn’t place his face. This would happen a few times. One day, I was scrolling through my tiktok feed when I came across a drumming livestream. This big ol’ dude was taking requests from people and providing drumming accompaniment to those requests. I would have scrolled past, but he hung a Lion City Sailors scarf on the wall, so I stayed. He would then also talk a bit about the song, chat a bit with his followers, etc. I found it very fascinating. It was like listening to a radio show, except the DJ not only put in the tunes, he would also drum along. Amazing. I spoke to him in the stands a few more times when I saw him at games. And all this time, I didn’t figure out the mystery of why he looked so familiar. Then one day it clicked – he used to be the drummer for Shirlyn + The UnXpected, a famous local band that did a lot of gigs around the pubs of Singapore. As a teenager that enjoyed listening to live music, I saw him around several times. It was so obvious yet it escaped me for so long. Brandon also was the drummer for many of the Mandopop tunes I grew up with. Brandon and I would get to know each other a lot better, and would bond over shared music taste. He called me an “old soul”, I didn’t reply because I felt it would be rude to point out it wasn’t just his soul that was old. We got along musically, and footballingly, and that’s all that matters. The stage was set for the next development. The Approach from the Club So after the abortive attempts at writing a song for the Crew, the club approached me 2 months ago (yes, all this was done in 2months). “Champions in Blue” did not exist 2 months ago. Let that sink in. A certain Brandon Khoo was in attendance as well. The club wanted a song that all Sailors fans could be proud of, something to rally us all. I’m not a songwriter and had previously only written one song before, so Brandon’s presence was obviously crucial. The club wanted Brandon to lead the project because not only is he a good musician, he is also a true fan, which makes it more meaningful. That, and also because of his extensive contacts from all across the

The ACL2 draw is upon us. I took it quite literally in the image for this article. It is an exciting time that some of us Sailors fans have been saving up our annual leave for. The ACL2 draw brings with it the glamour of an overseas tie in places as varied as Sydney, Manila, Zhejiang, and Hiroshima. The allure of a continental match doesn’t just bring with it a small dose of national pride, it also allows us to travel and experience different cultures, as can be seen from our previous trips to South Korea and Hong Kong, to name two examples. So who are we likely to draw? Should we be hoping to be saying Konnichiwa to friendly Japanese strangers, or are we much more likely to be saying sawadeekhrap? We answer that question in this article. What the Math Appears to Be Looking at the pots like that, it would seem that for any given team in Pot 1, Pot 2, and Pot 4, we have a 25% chance of drawing any of them, and a 0% chance of drawing anyone from Pot 3. However, there are some qualifiers that change the probability a little. Country Protection Now, let’s get the obvious out of the way, country protection rules means that we cannot draw Tampines Rovers in Pot 4. So that means automatically, on the surface it looks like the probability of drawing any of the Pot 4 teams goes from 25% to 33%, with Tampines out of the picture as we cannot draw them. However, there are still some qualifiers to talk about – still related to country protection. Given that LCS is in a Pot with Muangthong United, Kaya Iloilo and Lee Man, it also makes it more likely that we will draw Dynamic Herb Cebu or Eastern United from Pot 4, as compared to our chances of drawing Persib Bandung. I’ll try my best to explain this, but this is because we already have a team from HK and Philippines in our Pot. Thus, it is more likely that if another group has drawn Lee Man from Pot 3 for example, it cannot draw Eastern, thus increasing the chance for Eastern to be in other groups containing the Sailors. Country protection also comes to the fore when you notice that each of Pot 1, 2, and 3 have a Thai team. It makes it highly likely that we will draw a Thai team, so fans of Tom Yam and cheap massages, rejoice! S.O.S (A Call for Help, not the Outdated Tournament that We Somehow Still Participate In) Now, if you, like me, didn’t feel that all that made a lot of sense, then you just have to trust the code drawn up by one of my friends, Raghu, who will probably kill me for saying this, but he is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford Department of Physics. He is probably much better at me at all these science-y, math-y stuff. Do check him out if you are interested in his papers such as “An elementary quantum network of entangled optical atomic clocks” and “Quantum amplification of mechanical oscillator motion“. So anyway, he spent an hour writing some code for me, and we thus have the probability table you see below of us drawing any of the opponents from each Pot. The Probability Table Putting all the assumptions and rules together, this is how likely we are to draw each opponent from each Pot. As you can see, our chances of meeting a Thai opponent are very high, while a trip to Indonesia for Pot 4 looks less likely than a trip to Cebu or Hong Kong. Conclusion Probability is one thing, but where’s the fun in following the science all the time? Footyrankings Draw Simulator – this is the link where you can have some fun simulating over and over again who we are likely to meet. I tried it and got this abomination – Please, God, no. That would make it Shopee Cup x 2 for us this year. Let’s hope the draw brings us at least one Japanese/Korean/Australian team! Written by Eddy Hirono If you’d like to support the work we do here at SailorFanTalk, you may want to visit https://ko-fi.com/sailorfantalk and leave us a tip!

The Football Association of Singapore have fined our Technical Director Luka Lalic S$5000 for a post which made fun of the officiating during our 7-1 win over Albirex Niigata (S). I am still very annoyed by how this whole episode was handled, so let me dive into a few areas where I think the FAS really could have done better. It Was the Correct Charge for Luka Let me start off by saying that by the letter of the law, Luka Lalic is guilty of what he was accused of. He was accused of breaching Clause 92.1 of the Singapore Premier League 2024/2025 Regulations. By the letter of the law, sure he did breach it. Luka also accepted it, and “[acknowledged] that he could have acted differently to communicate his views on these topics in a more effective manner”. He also “expressed regret for his actions”. Let’s look at the offending post in question – Thank you Deepanraj Ganesan for the screenshot. By the letter of the law – it can be said to be disparaging because it seems that Luka meant to say that the VAR team is a bunch of clowns. I think he would have got away with it if his caption was “This is a goal, with VAR. That cannot be”, or “This is a goal, with VAR. We have to do better”. Those are probably more fine, because he is just stating facts. Anyone with half an eye can see this is an offside goal. But clowns? While it’s funny and I am sure supporters called the VAR team far, far worse, club staff and players must understand that their words carry more weight than that of the average layman, and so they should rightly be held to higher standards. Ok, so it was the correct charge, but should he have been charged, and was the fine excessive? Let’s dive into that. Luka Should Not Have Been Charged – Bad Optics I put myself in the shoes of the FAS. A club official just took a shit on our referees. However, the mistake was a really really poor one. It was an offside so clear that we called it from the stands. I remember being so confident that VAR would review it and disallow it. But hey, it wasn’t disallowed. Mistakes happen. Even the great English Premier League had a very similar incident, where Luis Diaz’s goal was wrongly disallowed due to a VAR error. The opposite of what happened, but no less important. In the aftermath, Jurgen Klopp called it a crazy decision, and said that the circumstances were very unfair. Virgil van Dijk said that he was losing faith in VAR. Both were not punished for their comments. The point of punishing players and officials for disparaging remarks is to ensure that matchgoers, footballers, and all involved in football do not lose faith in the institution. However, in this case, FAS should have taken a peek at how our friends in the EPL handled it and applied common sense. Yes, by the letter of the law, you can throw the book at Luka Lalic. But should you? When your officials made a monumental error and all Luka said was [clown emoji] [clown emoji] [clown emoji]? It’s like cheating on your wife, NOT APOLOGISING, and then pointing out to her that oh by the way I know I screwed up, but you are still not allowed to rant about it on IG – didn’t we say before that what happens in our marriage stays between us? Err hello, you made the mistake first right? I would have gone with a private / public warning for Luka Lalic, and then an APOLOGY for my officials making such an error. I also feel that the timing of these two statements together is not by coincidence. If you’re wondering why I bolded and underlined those words, it’s because if you read their statement carefully, FAS did not apologise. Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word Excuse me. Where is the apology? Where is the word “sorry”, or “apologise”? When supporters are aggrieved at a decision, when you’ve let your stakeholders down, the least you could do is apologise. We know that officials are human. The role of a referee is not an easy one. I took the refereeing course offered by FAS before and came out with a much greater appreciation for what our officials do week in week out. So let me be clear – referees can make mistakes. They are just like you and I. But unlike you and I, it seems that the organisation protects them to such a degree that it cannot apologise on their behalf. The effort it takes to craft such a media statement, artfully dodging the words “sorry”, “apologise”, “regret”, “let down”, or any word that would convey anything remotely resembling an apology is truly amazing. If only they had put such effort into their match previews. Not only are the bullet points not worthy of being stand-alone bullet points, the team news for Brunei DPMM is wrong. In the match right before this game, Farshad Noor was sent off for two yellow cards. Also, DPMM had already published on their website that their Aussie centreback Flottmann would be out for a long time with an ACL injury. At the time of publishing, Flottmann had already missed two games and the commentators had already discussed his injury. I am not even asking whoever came up with this to look up stats and love the game as much as I do. I am just asking him to watch the game and give a shit. That’s not too much to ask for, surely. Ok I digress. Back to the things FAS could have done better with this debacle. But ok la dammit, that preview didn’t come from an organisation that loves football. Ok really back this time. Luka’s Fine was Disproportionate So ok fine, you wanna set an example, you wanna

Chin Heng chips in with yet another guest article, this time detailing my time with him exploring Brunei. This might be useful for any Sailors or indeed any SPL fan who intends to make the trip across to watch an away game in Bandar Seri Begawan. We apologise for not being able to check out more sights as we were only there for 2 days 1 night – till next time! So you have probably heard the story by now – a few over-enthusiastic fans, including myself, booked a trip to Brunei to watch Sailors play against DPMM on 15th June. We assumed that the game would be in Brunei because, well, the SPL announced that it would be in Brunei when the fixtures were announced. Maybe we shouldn’t have put so much faith in Brunei DPMM and SPL. An announcement was made that the game would be relocated to Singapore on 18th June, just 8 days before the original date of 15th June. Fortunately, an extra 7 days was apparently more than enough for DPMM to fix the ‘technical issues’ that they couldn’t resolve over the 6 months of the off-season, and they finally played at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium on 22nd June against Geylang. What a game that was too, and I can only imagine what it would be like to watch a game in that majestic stadium ☹. Anyway, after Eddy and I decided to make lemonade with those Bruneian lemons and spend two days sightseeing in Brunei, we thought it would be a good idea to write some sort of guide to Brunei. DPMM will (probably) be playing the rest of their home games (maybe) in Brunei (perhaps) so our fellow fans could get a sense of what to expect, in case they wanted to make the trip to Bandar Seri Begawan for the next DPMM away game. (spoiler: we think it will be an enjoyable away day experience!) Currency You don’t need to visit the money changer before travelling to Brunei because the Brunei dollar is pegged to the Singapore Dollar at par (i.e. 1BND=1SGD). In Singapore, you may have encountered merchants who do not want to accept Brunei notes, but there is no such issue in Brunei, as Singapore notes and coins are widely circulated there. The only minor inconvenience we encountered was at a parking fee payment machine which did not accept Singapore notes, so we had to run to a nearby restaurant to ask to swap notes. Other than that, every shop we came across accepted Singapore dollars without batting an eyelid. Note that credit cards are not accepted at many smaller malls and restaurants, so plan the amount of cash you need to bring along accordingly. We also noticed that prices of fast food and major brands (like Nike/Adidas) are similar to or even slightly higher than Singapore, though food options at the night market was very cheap, with the prices of many items starting at a dollar. Getting to Brunei There are very few direct flight options from Singapore to Brunei, two to be exact. Singapore Airlines and Royal Brunei operate 1 daily flight each to a very small Brunei International Airport in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital city of Brunei. The Singapore Airlines flights have slightly better timings for an away day as it arrives in Brunei in the late morning and flies out of Brunei in the afternoon, ideal for a 2 to 3 day trip over a weekend. As a result of the limited options, air ticket prices do tend to be on the expensive side for a 2-hour flight, and you can expect to pay between $500-$700 for a flight to Brunei. A cheaper option is available if you have previously accumulated miles under Singapore Airlines’ Krisflyer programme, subject to redemption availability. Krisflyer also runs occasional ‘Spontaneous Escapes’ promotions with 30% off redemption prices to certain locations, which was what Eddy and I took advantage of. Do note that some redemptions or purchases under promotions can be non-refundable. Eddy and I found out to our horror that ours was non-refundable, and that’s why we made our way to Brunei despite the game being relocated. Getting Around Brunei Once we had the flights sorted, we had to figure out how to get around in Brunei. Bandar Seri Begawan is a small city, but the public transport system is not very well developed. There is no subway system and only a handful of public bus services available. The best way to get around Bandar Seri Begawan is either to rent a car or use their ride hailing app Dart. We rented a car at $180 for 2 days and it turned out to be a brilliant decision – all major attractions in Bandar Seri Begawan were within a 15-minute drive, parking was cheap and easily available in most places, and at ~50 cents a litre, petrol was literally cheaper than water in Brunei (our petrol expenses added up to a grand total of $4 for the 2 days lol). With a car you also get the added advantage of leaving your bags inside while you explore the town, and given the super low crime rate in Brunei, this is definitely something we felt safe doing. The Stadium Even though the game was postponed, we dropped by the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium anyway, perhaps hoping to pick up hints of the ‘technical issues’ that led to the relocation of the game. (Till today, Eddy and I don’t believe there were really any technical issues, but we have no proof, so … zip) The stadium was conveniently located next to the airport, and it took us only 7 minutes to drive there after picking up our rental car. There was nothing going on in the vicinity of the stadium, and we came across more stray dogs than humans in our short walk around the perimeter of the stadium, but what a beautiful stadium it was. The main grandstand

This is a bit of a late one, due to my busy work schedule. I remember when the 2024/2025 Home shirt was first unveiled, I felt super underwhelmed. It looked a lot like last year’s shirt. Same material, same collar, same colour, just a slightly different pattern on the shirt. And the pattern is so subtle that you can’t even really tell the difference at first glance. Take a look for yourself. The angry comments came. There were even accusations of LCS staff being lazy to design a different shirt. The memes came as well. In the off-season, fans have very little entertainment to themselves. There’s no watching the Sailors anywhere, and Singapore football doesn’t have a thriving ecosystem when it comes to transfer rumours and contract negotiation rumours. Without much else to excite us, one of the few things fans can really look forward to is the unveiling of the new shirt for the season ahead. So why did the Sailors not design something that excited the fans? Something fun, something edgy, something … different? Let’s start by clearing up the obvious. LCS Designers Are Not Lazy The least possible reason in my opinion is that the LCS designers just got lazy. Believe me, as much as these designs dismayed Sailors fans, the designs would have absolutely killed the designers. I bet a part of their souls died when they realised that this design would be the one used. The graphics dude in LCS is one Najwan Noor, who is known for his stellar design work. Don’t just take it from me, go take a look at his Twitter account yourself. Or I could walk you through a few examples – I mean, just look at that amount of effort for a regular, run-of-the-mill league game. The attention to lighting and detail is quite frankly amazing. More recently, there was this – If you look closely, you will see that the books on the shelves spell out chant lyrics that the Crew uses, while the TV features a Crew sticker on the left side as well. Of course, if you have a keen eye, you would also have spotted that near the left finger, there’s SailorFanTalk’s banner right there, hiding in plain sight. The attention to detail, and to fan service does not tally with the view that the club just didn’t give a shit about the fans. If the designers put in so much effort for a matchday poster that will be forgotten after weeks, or even days, would they not want to give their 110% for a shirt that they will look at for months on end? Go figure. So if it’s not the club, then is it Puma? Puma Just Not Very Inspired The short answer is “Yes”. For me at least. There was recently an article which ranked the best Puma kits of all time, and I’d urge you to go take a look. All I’ll say is Puma, if that’s your top 10, I don’t wanna know what’s your bottom 10 designs. Very uninspired, very boring, very template. You can imagine a Nike or Adidas top 10 list would look so so sick and spark much debate about which shirt is the true GOAT. Puma’s list just leaves you wondering how they even made the top 10 at all. To make matters worse, as some may know, we don’t even get Puma’s best designers to aid us with coming up with a design – given LCS’s status as a “small” club, we get our designs from the teamwear catalogue. I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to those who don’t know. So if we wanted a white shirt, our options were kinda limited if you take a look at this catalogue. Well that’s Option 1. It would have looked very similar, and no less boring. One point to note is that this is made out of Ultraweave material, which you may remember as the material for last year’s blue away kit. Apparently the players did not like Ultraweave as they felt it clung on to their body too much, and it was thus uncomfortable to play in. So, let’s knock out Option 1. Well that’s Option 2. Hmm. The less said about this the better. A truly ugly shirt. It looks like you wore a white shirt and then got run over by a car. Or you’re a zebra that really likes 50 Shades of Gray. Next. Option 3. I fell asleep assessing this picture. Boring. Drycell material, dry in creativity as well. And guess what, that’s that. I should have known, given that I am an Arsenal fan and Puma was far and away the worst kit sponsor Arsenal had in their entire history. I don’t think LCS were given much to work with. Had they picked any of these options, I think the fans would still have been very underwhelmed. It would at least be different, I guess, and there is some utility in that. In that regard, I wonder if SEA or Forrest may have considered using another logo as the official “sponsor” on the shirt, just to switch things up. Maybe SeaMoney instead of the SEA logo? Why are Puma Able to Customise Kits for Other Clubs? Because those clubs sell kits, and are viewed as priority for Puma. That is the sad truth, I guess. Look at those numbers. While these do not represent the total number sold, because a good amount of business is probably done at the stadium, these numbers are nowhere near what the top clubs generate. Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund and AC Milan, who are all sponsored by Puma, generated €73 million, €54 million and €47 million respectively. It is thus perhaps understandable that Puma would rather not spend too much resources on manufacturing a custom kit for LCS. But should we settle for this? Maybe LCS Needs a Supplier in the Same Position As Us The Sailors shirt looking so similar to

In this SailorFanTalk special, we have guest writer Ernest contributing yet another article! Ernest returns to share about his experience travelling with the Crew for yet another away game, this time a familiar city just across the border. He quips about the journey there, the sights and scenes, the hospitality and ultimately, lessons we can learn from our footballing neighbours. Friendly Neighbours Johor Bahru. Singaporeans often cross the border to enjoy the benefits of a superior exchange rate – 3.51 at the time of writing. From affordable (and arguably tastier) food, groceries to heavily subsided petrol, we love to patronise their offerings. With a gradually weakening currency, Malaysians have been the subject of some light-hearted jokes.  However, Johor Darul Ta’zim are no laughing matter. In the span of a decade, they have managed to establish themselves as the best Malaysian football club (by some distance) and a regional powerhouse. The slogan Decade of Dominance is well deserved, such is the success of the team. Being an ambitious team ourselves, we can surely take some lessons from their meteoric rise. We took the opportunity of a pre-season friendly to visit their ground. Gathering at Home The club were kind enough to charter a coach for ardent fans. We even received extra jerseys and scarves to look the part for this away day. I have to applaud the club’s constant effort to engage the Crew. The invitation was extended to non-members, which I’m sure will go a long way in expanding our fanbase. It is a good look for the club to start such initiatives, not just for LCS but for local football.  We were soon on our way. The coach was comfortable and spacious, leaving enough room for some pre-match chats and snoozes. It rained in the afternoon, the skies had cleared by this time and it set the stage for a great day ahead. A Stadium Fit for Royalty Yeap, that’s half of us marvelling at the behemoth that is the Sultan Ibrahim Stadium. As the name suggests, it was named in honor of Johor’s current ruler, Sultan Ibrahim ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar. He was also recently sworn in as the seventeenth Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. All this is to say that this venue is a glorious sight.  Everyone was in high spirits, the journey here was pleasant and we had tons of free time before the match. We took some pictures and proceeded to check out the amenities the stadium had to offer. I headed excitedly to the new megastore JDT Direct first. The last time I was here, the merchandise was sold in booths located near the outdoor parking lots. It was refreshing to see a brand new retail space that attracted even opposition fans. There was a feature wall at the entrance showing JDT memories through the decade, before leading to the main store itself. It reminded me of stepping out onto the pitch from the player tunnel, which may have been the inspiration behind this concept.  We happened to visit on the day of their 24/25 3rd kit launch. They were going at a lower price than last season’s jerseys and many of us Crew left the store with shopping bags in hand. They also offered name printing services. There were tons of accessories on sale, even a cute angpao set that I was reluctant to leave behind. The staff were ever so helpful, and greeted us at the door when we left the store. This leaves me excited for the upcoming LCS kit launches. The new SPL season will be upon us very shortly and I’m sure fans will be clamouring to get their hands on the kits. The new signings have also garnered much interest and there will be many requests to print their names on their new kits. Currently, most of us get our jersey fix through the Shopee store, matchday merchandise booth and the vending machine at Mattar Road. The only way to print names would be through The Sporting Edge website, but ask a random fan and he/she wouldn’t have a clue. The fans would prefer to print their jerseys on matchday itself, which I’m sure the club will be looking into. HINT HINT. Matchday Grub With retail therapy out of the way, we proceeded to survey the food options. There were plenty, with chains like Starbucks, KFC, Subway and my personal favourite, Woodfire Burgers. It was the second last day of Ramadan for our Muslim friends, understandably the queues were a little long. The prices were lower than you would expect even at local standards. I understood from a JDT fan that the club’s owner, Crown Prince Tunku Ismail Idris (also known as TMJ) subsidised prices so that the local fans would find it affordable and choose to dine in at the stadium. This is a great way to address the needs of the fans whilst boosting matchday revenue and numbers. LCS have taken a step in the right direction, with the home leg of this friendly featuring a few food trucks including the beloved Old Chang Kee. It was a nice sight to see many fans having their meal at the stadium before the match kicked off. Moving forward, it would be wise to continue such initiatives, encouraging fans to reach the stadium early and possibly increase match attendances. Boys of Straits The famous JDT fan group or Ultras if you will, Boys of Straits. I have always been in awe of their drumming and chanting routines, executed with surgical precision and military unison. They are in my eyes a vision of what the Crew can be one day, if we continue growing. Eddy, Joseph and Charmaine had the opportunity to speak with Adam, the admin of the BOS Instagram account. He reached out earlier to meet at their very own merch store, MARKAZ. It’s really surreal to see the BOS have a dedicated space not just to sell their merchandise, but also to celebrate the journey of

In this SailorFanTalk special, we have guest writer Tan Chin Heng contributing yet another article! Chin Heng joined The Crew and SailorFanTalk in away trips for the ACL last season, and is an avid traveller, taking in football and rugby matches far and wide. Taking lessons from places he has travelled to, here he writes about his wishlist as a supporter for the season ahead! With the first two games of preseason gone, it feels like the SPL is well and truly back! Okay not really, since our first pre-season game featured exactly zero first-team regulars, and a smattering of first-team players got some minutes in the second game. Nonetheless, it was still some minutes for our younger players, and it was also good to see familiar faces back in Bishan stadium after a few months. As we countdown to an exciting new season with (possibly) 10 teams in the SPL, as well as our first foray into ACL2, I thought it would be a good time to take stock of how the club did last season off the pitch, and also come up with a wishlist of some improvements that I would love to see in the coming season. Our Sailors are always at the forefront of new initiatives on and off the pitch to elevate the scene in Singapore, so I am hopeful some of these changes will happen. What the Sailors Did Well Last Season Our 2023 season can be described as solid, with our first Singapore Cup title as well as credible performances in the ACL against some of the best teams in Asia. Off the pitch, Sailors have also done well in a number of areas: Communication with Fans Over the past season, I think the club has done a commendable job at communicating with fans in general, as we receive frequent updates and content through email newsletters and social media. Every matchday we are inundated with matchday content, pre-match videos and interviews before the game, live updates during the game, and match recaps post-game. We also enjoyed quality content in other areas, as we got to see players and staff not just in a football context. Things like Mothers’ Day videos and articles, the International Womens’ day articles (one of which won Story of the Year at the FAS Awards Night), fun and games on tiktok etc. clearly took plenty of effort to put together, so kudos to the team for bringing such a wide variety of content to us and I would love to see more of the same in the coming season. Matchday Experience A lot of work has also gone into crafting an enjoyable matchday experience for fans last season. There were several F&B options available at the stadium (beer, nachos, burgers, pizza) and we also saw a decent selection of merchandise on matchday (jerseys, training kits, t-shirts, keychains, tote bags etc.). The variety of halftime entertainment also brought some additional buzz into the stadium – contests for fans and performances (and T-SHIRT MAN) were good ways to bring some excitement into an otherwise boring 15-minute interval. Fan Engagement and Giveaways Throughout the season, we saw many contests and giveaways organized by the club, from match tickets and merchandise to fully sponsored away trips to ACL games. I was fortunate enough to be a recipient of a sponsored trip for the ACL away game in Hong Kong (paid for the other two away trips myself), and the experience certainly made me feel appreciated as a Sailors fan. All of these giveaways were not only fun to participate in but also presented an opportunity for the club to ‘pull’ more fans in. I could certainly see a casual follower being converted into a die hard fan if they won, say, a match ball signed by the whole first team. While plenty of good work has been done for fan engagement and the matchday experience, it would be great to see further improvements in these areas (just like how the team strives to improve on the pitch to compete against the best in Asia), which brings us to the next topic. Wishlist for Next Season Without knowing the inner workings of the club, I would make a reasonable assumption that the goals / objectives of the club off the pitch include building a strong fan community (increasing overall numbers of fans attending games as well as building a core group of highly engaged fans). With that in mind, there are a list of things that I would love to see in the upcoming season, based on anecdotal experience from talking to fellow fans and also experiencing league games in other countries. Greater Variety of Merchandise While the club has provided a decent selection of merchandise last season, I think there is still some demand for a greater variety of Sailors’ merchandise. It would be great to see a greater variety of apparel (polo tees, jackets, shorts) as well as smaller items that are easy to use in our daily lives (shoe bags, phone/airpod casing, pouches, luggage tags etc.). Perhaps even some novelty items such as trading cards or jigsaw puzzles? Most importantly, I hope to see a jersey printing/customization service made available on matchday as fans currently need to jump through quite a few hoops if they want to get any printing done for their jersey. I also noticed that not all the merchandise available on matchday was available on the Shopee store, so ideally we can see the full catalogue of merch available on Shopee in the coming season. In an era of rampant consumerism there are probably a good number of fans who are willing to spend on anything with a Sailors logo on it, so please Sailors, take my money. Wider Engagement of Fans and More Benefits for Season Pass Holders Season ticket holders are typically the most loyal supporters of any football club, turning up to almost every game rain or shine. It is thus essential to keep this