Category: Blog

Running, Somewhere in Holland

A crowd of runners gathers beneath the roof of an apartment balcony near the start of the race. Slowly, the density increases. Some perform mild stretches; others talk and joke lightly with others – either their friends or strangers. With five minutes to go, the crowd dissipates and heads towards the start line, marked by […]

Black and Proud

The Blackness of the Game: After Reading Klugman and Osmond’s, Black and Proud Sport is a social space in which racism can be both perpetuated and combated. Sport, as a part of mainstream society, is implicated in debates and discourses on racism at all of its levels. From the amateur level, to that of the […]

Phil Hughes and the Dreams of Playing Cricket

Mum and dad are moving house. They are leaving behind their house in Glen Iris and moving to Richmond. I remember the Glen Iris house for many things, but, perhaps specifically for driveway cricket. Our backyard was on a hill and not suitable for the game, so, my brother and I played in the driveway. […]

Buku PSIM

Teman-teman pecinta PSIM dan sepakbola di Indonesia, isi buku saya tentang PSIM dan Brajamusti kurang lebih begini. Maaf, untuk sementara ini, bukunya dalam Bahasa Inggris. Versi Bahasa Indonesia segera menyusul. judulnya: I Love PSIM: the Brajamusti and the Fight for Soccer in Indonesia (Saya Mencintai PSIM: Brajamusti dan Perjuangannya untuk Sepakbola di Indonesia) Kata Pengantar: […]

What Makes This City Yogyakarta

*draft of introduction to my co-authored work with Dimaz Maulana. Perhaps it will form a book. We’re working on it. The woman at the counter asked me about the work I do. I told her “writer”; which is an arrogant way of saying, “unemployed”. The next day, she asked me what am I writing about, […]

Acceptance Speech

*any resemblance between the names used below and their real life characters is purely Matt Priddis stepped up to the podium. He was wearing the usual outfit: a black suit, a white shirt, and a black bow-tie. His curly blond hair hung almost to his shoulders. Some curls gently fell onto his checks and over […]

The Overhead Lockers Landed in a Sunflower Field

Fragments /1/ There is a Ritual Salts bag lying in a field in Eastern Ukraine. The farmer, Valeriy Sulyivka who picked it up and who saw the suitcase in which it was packed fall, doesn’t care for Breestraat in Leiden, but that is where the passenger Hans Noteboom bought his gifts for his wife. He […]

Zlatanism

Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Lagercrantz, I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic, trans.Ruth Urbom, London: Penguin, 2011. I am reading Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s autobiography yes I am. In the late 1990s, Malmo Football Club (Malmo Fotbollforening, MFF) was relegated to the second division. The documentary Bladarar shows some of their fans in tears as the final whistle of the […]

Politics of Soccer in Indonesia

Politics of Soccer in Indonesia Politik Sepakbola di Indonesia Nurdin Halid occupies the inglorious position of having been the only national soccer boss, to have run the sport’s governing body from within jail. He is perhaps also the most hated man in soccer in Indonesia: for he governed (mismanaged, corrupted) the PSSI (Perserikatan Sepak Bola […]