Heavy Burn
Pops Aplenty
Grilled's second-stringers did a number on a sadly-reduced Blackburn Rovers side, in a rout that saw no less than four delighted first-time scorers.
Remco van der Ban and
Leong Wan Kang were the others to benefit, but
Hariharan Prabhu would be a worry after taking a boot to the ankle.
If there were any murmurs about whether this was disrespectful to Rovers, such talk was rapidly dispelled, once the chasm in standards between the Birds' professional reserves and Blackburn's part-time volunteers was fully revealed. Former amateur five-a-side champion Chee Long Xin was probably the visitors' standout, and yet even he was mostly unable to keep up with the men in green.
Despite
Lee Lee Hao being the only legit first-teamer to start, Grilled were all over their opponents from the word go, and
Remco van der Ban put the first goal in after eight minutes. Ling Kian Tian's willingness to use his hands then got him a booking, and Remco added a second in the 18th, after
Kohei Okuya's header from a corner was dropped.
It only went downhill for Rovers from there, as Imran Syahabuddin was judged to have illegally prevented a clear scoring opportunity for
Leong Wan Kang the very next minute. Truth be told, it was hard to see where Leong was going with that one, but he did the job from twelve yards.
Hilal Bakhtiar would pass up a sitter from the left, but
Kohei Okuya would polish a similar opportunity off in the 31st; a bit later,
Leonard Nguyen lashed his own maiden goal strongly home, and the joy on the duo's faces was palpable as they made for their relatives in the stands; Rovers' Connor Jung in contrast was definitely not feeling the love, as he got hauled up for repeatedly trying to infringe on the preceding free-kick.
It wasn't the grandest of sights that the half-full The Cooking Pot had witnessed, but most of the spectators nevertheless lapped it up. Rovers' Oliver Joseph retained enough of a sense of humour to ham it up after his appeal for a foul got rejected offhand, which was received positively by the gallery.
A comeback was, of course, not on the cards, and the only thing left to be determined was the extent to which Grilled would pad their goal difference. They had cooled off noticeably during the interval, and it would take until the 56th minute for
Leong Wan Kang to get them going again, shooting through a crowd.
The dropoff was real, as the Rovers part-timers began looking good in stretches - although the free-ranging Musa Helmi never quite got past
Remco van der Ban, goalie Lim Huat Beng would cover himself in some glory, tipping an excellent
Leong Wan Kang free-kick over, before blocking Kohei's thoughtful chip onto the post. Not bad at all for a sales executive!
Still, the objective had long been met, and
Djan Bacelar chose to award run-outs to
Sandy Fu and
Lee Ah Jin, for the last ten minutes. This would be the very patient Fu's first competitive appearance in seven seasons, while for recent Wings graduate Lee, he had not even gotten his jersey printed up; he wound up taking to the pitch in an unmarked Number Forty-Three shirt, but that didn't dampen his ardour in the least.
There would be a number of miscommunications amongst the Grilled players, at least up until the game had to be stopped following Loh Chang Teck's senseless hack at
Hariharan Prabhu. It was a wonder that Loh managed to stay on after that, and as for Prabhu, he would have to depart for
Chong Tse Chu.
Grilled's substitutes then made the most of their hard-won gametime, with
Lee Ah Jin having a dream debut, as he unwittingly clipped an attempted pass between the goalie's legs. There was no way that he had been planning that, as his facial expression plainly broadcast, but he got over it quickly enough.
Sandy Fu then joined in on the revelry, having waited eleven seasons for this moment; with
Lee Lee Hao a class above on the right, he had few issues spraying the crosses in, and Fu nodded one home to evident delight. Connor Jung was incensed, having being knocked aside in the process, and to be honest he might have had a case. Unfortunately for him, he pressed it too hard, and ended up getting a headstart on the after-game shower.
