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Robin Parke

THERE were 488 paying customers to watch bottom-of-the-league side Five-One-Seven beat table-topping Instant-Dict in the first round of the Senior Shield last week.

 Hong Kong's most popular club, South China, switched their Asian Club Championship game against Chinese champions Dalian from the Hong Kong Stadium to the smaller Mongkok ground.

 Within 24 hours of the shock Five-One-Seven result, the Hong Kong Football Association had followed suit and moved both Senior Shield semi-final games from the showpiece So Kon Po ground to the utilitarian Mongkok Stadium, which is jammed to the doors with 9,000 fans inside.

 The HKFA's reasoning was simple: the two biggest and supposedly most attractive sides in local football, South China and Instant-Dict, would now be spectators for the final stages of the oldest knockout competition locally.

 All in all, it might be said that local football has passed beyond crisis to disaster.

 Prior to last week's game-switching, there was turmoil at headquarters when senior secretariat staff resigned and the national team found itself leaderless, without managers or a coach.

 The team itself has been temporarily scrapped but will re-convene in some form for the annual interport against Guangdong - possibly with a foreign coach.

 When you think about it, there's not a lot more that can go wrong.

 Incidentally, I was the 489th spectator for the Five-One-Seven game, courtesy of a complimentary ticket. However, if a convenient crystal ball had given any indication of what lay ahead some hours before the encounter, the $60 would gladly have been paid.

 The game did not produce memorable football, but excitement was the order of the night, right down to the twice-taken final penalty which saw Instant-Dict, against all odds, on their way out of the competition.

 The ills that beset Hong Kong football are many, but one concern is the perceived lopsided structure of the First Division.

 The FA moved two semi-final games because South China and Instant-Dict are out of the competition. Elsewhere, knockout competitions thrive on shock results and interest is intensified. Seemingly not in Hong Kong.

 South China were beaten in the Shield by Happy Valley - a side that looked comfortable, competent and capable of winning something this season.

 The Caroliners, who did a solid pre-season training stint in Germany, were pictured before the season began as nigh unbeatable. Confidence surged through the team and there were those prepared to say just that: South China will not be beaten.

 South China have lurched from one defeat to another and Instant-Dict, although they had the chances to win the Five-One-Seven game five times over, will not find licking their wounds an enjoyable exercise.

 The woes of South China and, to a lesser extent, the clear evidence that Instant-Dict can be beaten by a team considered to have not the remotest chance, should give enormous encouragement to other teams in the First Division.

 But nowadays it doesn't seem to work that way in Hong Kong - certainly as far as the paying public is concerned.

 It is unfortunate that capable teams like Happy Valley and Sing Tao do not receive the support that most of the time their efforts deserve.

 Both teams, and others like them over the past few seasons, lack charisma and have not done enough to almost force themselves on the public. They need big names from overseas - or overseas coaches who will make their operations much more professional.

 In the past, both Seiko and Bulova came from nothing to dominate football before quitting the sport.

 Both Sing Tao and Happy Valley have been around for decades and, in that time, have mixed it with the Seikos, Bulovas and South Chinas with considerable success.

 These days, however, the public reacts to dramatic flourishes, major signings and big plans. Very few teams make these moves and there has not been a foreign player in the past five years to make an indelible impression on the game.

 Football is slipping into a second-rate spectator sport here yet it was not that long ago that scalpers made money.

 At national level, how the HKFA could expect to sign a foreign coach and have the right one in the space of less than two months beats me. Sign in haste, repent at leisure.

 The irony is that there is still entertainment to be had in local football. The 488 at Mongkok Stadium last Monday night were cheering their heads off and Five-One-Seven were given a standing ovation when they won. The 489th person in the ground had no complaints, either.



Moving the goal posts as 'big two' fall