Singapore Football Never Managed To Put Him On A Payroll. It Ran On Him Anyway.

Singapore rejected him three times. He kept training its players for free anyway.

Every conversation I've had about Singapore football ends up in the same year. 1977.

The man who won that Malaysia Cup wasn't on the payroll. And he coached the final on a leg he'd opened up days earlier and never had looked at.

Here's what I didn't know until recently:

His own football association had spent years turning him away.

Choo Seng Quee. Everyone called him Uncle Choo.

He coached Indonesia's national team from 1951 to 1953 on an honorary basis. Unpaid.

Malaya hired him in 1958 at $700 a month.

Singapore's own association offered him $250 a month and a cut of the gate. That was February 1965.

In December the association sacked him with immediate effect.

In June 1966 he offered to help coach the national team. The association turned him down, citing a lack of funds to pay his salary.

Not that it stopped him. He trained teenagers at Farrer Park and kitted them out of his own sports shop on Owen Road. Tea and soup kambing to build them up. From 1971 to 1975 he coached four Singapore clubs, all of it unpaid.

In 1973 a Hong Kong club offered him $2,800 a month. He turned it down. In September 1974 he applied to the association for the national coach's job. Rejected.

In September 1976 the association appointed him.

Three of its staff resigned over it.

Then the results.

1-4 to Malaysia. 0-7 to South Korea. 0-6 to Thailand.

In December 1976 the fans petitioned to have him removed.

In March 1977 he announced he was quitting. Then he stayed on, voluntary, with payouts tied to results.

In May a man died in the queue for semi-final tickets at Kallang. Forty-four injured.

In the semi-final second leg in Kuala Lumpur, Choo fell and gashed open his right leg. He was diabetic. He never had it looked at.

Days later: 28 May, Merdeka Stadium, 40,000 in the ground. Singapore went behind by half-time. Equalised after the break. Quah Kim Song won it in extra time. 3-2. First Cup in twelve years.

The wound turned gangrenous. On 14 September they took the right leg off up to the knee. On 20 September they went back for more of it. His heart stopped three times.

Four months in hospital. In January 1978 he told the papers: "I don't have to have two feet to teach soccer."

In January 1979 he was back on a field, coaching Tampines Rovers from a wheelchair.

Here's what keeps coming back to me:

The association sacked him in 1965. Refused him in 1966. Rejected him again in 1974. Three rejections, and he never once stopped training its players for free.

Most people take the hint after the first no.

It finally said yes, in September 1976. He coached that final on a leg he'd never had looked at. It cost him the leg.

What's something you've kept doing for free, after being told no more than once?