By Asraf Dahari

We were promising footballing talents. Justifiably so, as match statistics shall prove in later passages.

It was 1972, two years before Kuala Lumpur was made a Federal Territory.

A fair number of us, me included, were in Form Five, preparing for the Malaysian Certificate of Education (MCE) exams. Syed Agil was a year younger. Sadly, Syed Agil, a winger passed away three years ago.

Our team was named Saldo FC. Jamaluddin Said, now 69, thought of the name. He simply enjoyed uttering Saldo! Saldo! My years in journalism taught me to check things out.

Saldo turns out to be a Dutch word, meaning “balance”. Saldo also made its way into Bahasa Indonesia, carrying the same meaning.

Jamaluddin is a born leader. He was captain of Saldo FC and acted as our coach.

Last month, Dec 2022 he decided we should have a reunion! I was reminded by Jamaluddin on three occasions not to miss the reunion.

My friends at ApaKhabarTV.com have been hounding me with endless questions.

Did Saldo FC have a funder? No. An elderly gentleman kindly donated the team Jersey. We made sure we had matching socks and shorts.

Was Saldo FC in any KL league? Nope. We played friendlies at Kelab Sultan Sulaiman.

Did you beat any of the great teams? Saldo FC defeated Cochrane School 1 – 0. Cochrane was indeed Selangor Schools U18 champions. The best teams in Selangor then were mainly school teams in KL, capital of Malaysia and capital of Selangor. We cycled to Cochrane for the friendly match.

NOW… The Young Once (The writer is on far left, next to him is captain Jamaluddin Said) posing for the camera during the reunion. The top photo shows the Young Ones before a match some 50 years ago.

Khalid Ali of Dato Keramat was then known as a younger brother of Hanafiah Ali, a national footballer. Khalid’s team turned up at Kelab Sultan Sulaiman for a friendly versus Saldo FC. We won!

Saldo FC now has a WhatsApp group. That came about the night after we had our little reunion at Hameediyah Restaurant, Ampang.

Syawal Sidek, our centreback, displayed sound tactical awareness. He brought our 1972 team photo.

Sensibly, everyone has retired as part-time footballers. We lost sense of our age chatting about our footballing feats 50 years ago.

Organising any football friendly games? We shall meet up at least once a year.

I have to go. Saldo FC is revisiting our line-up this instance.

NOTE: This writer is an award winning photographer who has worked in three mainstream newspapers, mainly Utusan Malaysia, The Star and New Straits Times. He was also media consultant for a PR firm before joining apakhabartv.com as visual editor.