Kelab UMNO Melbourne Australia

This year’s UMNO Cup tournament successfully took place on the 10^th & 11^th of April 2010 at The Serbian Sports Centre. The venue was located about forty minutes from the city. A total of ten teams filled this year’s tournament with two groups of five. For the first time in years, we had two interstate teams from Queensland and Adelaide respectively. This brought more flavour into the competition and raised the bar in terms of quality football as the best from both states were competing amongst the best in Victoria. There were also imported players in each team hailing from the likes of Norway, Singapore, Indonesia and the Middle East.

Our referee for both days, Mr.Safet, originally from Bosnia, expressed how happy he was to be part of this tournament. His reason being, he has never seen such integration among any society. Knowing we are Malaysians, he was amazed at how people from different backgrounds participated and reflected the bond we possess. Mr Safet also revealed his fond memories about Malaysia particularly during the war in the Balkan region where Malaysia played a big role in helping out the Bosnians.

Just before the final match commenced, both teams formed a line ala a world cup match and sang the Negaraku together with the audience. We also had a commentator especially for the final match who made everyone laugh along with his typical Malaysian commentary similar to our famous Hasbullah Awang. Further reflecting our integration, our top scorer and player of the tournament came from different backgrounds respectively. Truly, the 1Malaysia spirit lives in us all.

By Shamir Hameed
Secretary
Kelab UMNO Australia Melbourne