God of Misfortune

Sometimes in life, some things happen to you and you just feel that its a sign of things to come. Be it good or bad, you just feel it in your bones. If you are lucky enough, you can still try to amend it if its bad. But at other times, you can only hope for the best.

It all happened on Tuesday, when I took out my ticket for the Arsenal Carling Cup game and noticed that the kickoff time was 745pm and not the usual 8pm for midweek domestic games. I was wondering whether that would make any difference to me. But I came to the conclusion that it was better since it gave me a better chance of making my return coach to London if the game had stretched to extra time or penalties. How wrong I was.

Then on Wednesday, the actual day of the game itself, I had set off on my bike at 1130am for Victoria coach station. My usual route involved cycling along the Mall which is the long straight road leading directly to the front gate of Buckingham Palace. But today the road was closed to vehicles. Gigantic South Korean and UK flags hung from flag posts along the entire stretch. I was forced to get down my bike and push and walk along briskly on the pavement. I wasn't flustered, but slightly disturbed. God knows how long the road closure was and if I were to walk all the way I might not be able to make my coach. As it is, after passing the Palace after 10 minutes of walking, I was able to continue cycling. I reached the coach station with 15-20 minutes to spare, about 10-15 minutes longer than usual.

When people started boarding the coach, that was when things started to go horribly horribly wrong. Since there were a lot of people, there were 2 coaches for that time slot. The driver of the National Express coach parked in front said passengers who are going to Manchester should board the coach behind. I glanced and it was a yellow Silverdale coach, i.e. the driver was probably not a National Express driver. Given the bad experiences I had with non-National Express drivers thus far (remember about not knowing how to drive to Stoke or Liverpool coach station?), alarm bells rang in my head. But the obedient Singaporean in me decided not to ask any questions and board the coach. After all what could go VERY wrong right? The coach is supposed to reach Manchester at 5pm, even if the coach was late by 1 hour, I would still have 1 hour 45 minutes. Plenty of time. Again very very very wrong.

There was a small commotion on my coach before it was supposed to depart. A black and fat (somehow this is the standard description, not being racist here but black women who take coaches all do seem fat. Perils of fast food diets...) woman was one of the last few to board the coach I think. She was going to take the inner seat and I think she took too long and the ang moh guy (also fat) who was taking the outer seat told her to hurry up or something. The woman got pissed and started shouting back at the guy. Even after sitting down, the 2 of them were still arguing. they were telling each other "You shut up." "your mother something something ( I can't hear)" The black woman also kept saying "you smelly pig". And she suddenly got so pissed that she got off the coach. In the process, she mistakenly took another lady's coat and when she discovered it was not hers, she threw it onto the seat. How rude!! And presumably she went to the National Express coach in front to take that coach because after a while, a guy boarded my coach. From his pattern I think he was also going for the match. How he will rue his decision to be a hao ren and change seats with the black woman. If only I knew at that time too....

The 2 coaches set off at the same time. Since Victoria station was around the Buckingham Palace area also, the closure of certain roads made the traffic in the surrounding area heavier than usual. This is when the feeling of foreboding in me began to work overtime. The niggly feeling of something is going to go horribly wrong. The coach took like 10 minutes longer than usual just to move about 1km and then to go onto the main road out of London. And just when we had got out of London itself, the driver took a sudden and unexpected stop at some service station. Apparently the toilet door of the coach could not be opened and the driver was goingto try and open it. As soon as it became clear that even he could not open it, people started getting off to use the toilets in the service station. A 5 minute instruction became more like 15 minutes, and so my journey was delayed yet again.

Yet this wasn't the crucial blow. At about 345pm, the driver made another stop. This was also unexpected because during all my experiences in taking the 1230pm coach, there isn't supposed to be any breaks at all. Yet the driver gave us a break of about 20 minutes. And he proudly proclaimed that the journey to Manchester would take only about 1.5 hours more after that. Which kind of made me pissed off because that would mean we would reach at about 545pm. He knew we would be late, and he still stopped for a break. I would like to add that he had been driving really slowly as well along the way even when traffic was clear. There might be a regulation that the driver can't drive for how many hours straight without a break, but those drivers taking night coaches don't seem to bother with that ruling if there is one. But complaining was useless, and I could only hope that nothing else would delay my journey. Fat hope as it turned out to be.

After we passed the toll booth for the M6 highway, we were soon caught in heavy traffic. A few times the coach accelerated, raising my hopes that the jam was a minor one, only to break heavily a few seconds later. And this carried on all the way to Manchester. Phones on the coach started to rang as 5pm came, then 530pm, 545pm and so on... The old man sitting quite near to me had to postpone the meeting time he had with someone else from 545pm to 615pm to 630pm......Guess what was the eventual time that I reached? 720pm. The entire journey took about 7 hours! Can you imagine a 4.5 hour ride stretching to 7 hours??!?!!? I was fuming mad on the coach, not about the jam, but the driver. Remember I mention the National Express coach in front of mine at Victoria? That coach reached at 515pm. I knew because some of my friends were on that coach instead. Good thing they never took mine.

As it is, I had a slim chance of making the game on time. I fast marched to the tram station, but the well know phenomenon of public transport occurred yet again.

Tosh's phenomenon of public transport states that public transport ALWAYS takes a longer time than usual to arrive whenever you are in a hurry.

The tram must have took like 10 minutes to arrive. Before that, there was this Malaysian guy and Malaysian girl who were also on the same coach as me. They were also waiting for the tram and they and their friends were talking about which stop and which line to take. Seeing that the Malaysian girl was quite cute, I kindly told them that they could also take the Eccles line and stop at Exchange Quay (the other one was Altrincham line and stopping at Old Trafford). I told them the distance from either stops to the ground was about the same. The guy said ok and we proceeded with some bo liao introductions (bo liao because it was the guy who answered not the girl *knnbccb*) and that's when I knew that they were Malaysians studying in IC. Then came the best part, the Eccles service came and I told them can take this one. After realising its Eccles line and not Altrincham line, the guy questioned me and asked "You sure you taking this?"

Immediately my bullshit detector went on high alert. Kan ni na be, I fake you will earn money meh? I see at first you look like Singaporean then want to offer some help one (admittedly the cute girl swayed the decision too but that's another matter...) then you come back and question me? I was more bemused than du lan actually. No offence to my Malaysian cousins, but this is yet another reason why I do not like Malaysians in general, be they Malays or Chinese. They are simply damn xia lan. (Don't give me the argument that I only just met them and don't know them well enough etc etc, everybody have their good points if you know them well enough, even serial rapists and murderers. First impressions is paradoxically one of the most accurate forms of judgement for me.) If somebody offers me advice willingly, (and they look as cute, harmless and handsome as me...) I would be very grateful, and not question them back in a xia lan manner. Anyway I told the guy yeah I am boarding and went off to squeeze into the tram. I am not about to waste any more time with shit from the north.

As usual, public transport just seems to cruise along at painfully low speeds whenever you are in a rush, and it soon became clear that I wasn't going to make it on time. My only hope was for them to delay the kickoff, but some locals on the tram discussed it and said it would not be possible.

Know about the saying it never rains but pours? TosH had confirmed the accuracy of that statement. Just as the tram reached Exchange Quay station, one of the locals' mobile phone rang and he said, "We missed a goal." I was like WTF?!?! REALLY so suey?? And began to break into a sprint for the stadium. I had not jogged since like February early this year and this was akin to killing myself. I ran for like 3 or 4 minutes before I reached the stadium, but by then I had already missed about 10 minutes of the action. Was pretty flustered, and du lan for the remaining period of the first half. The game itself never lived up to my own expectations, but at least the atmosphere made up for it for a little bit.

Half time came and I realised I had not bought the match programme yet. So I went to the concourse to find the booth where they were selling programmes. I was at the centre of the exit and had a choice of trying to turn left or turn right. I chose left and began moving through the crowd but I soon came to an end without finding the booth. I went to the toilet and then began moving in the opposite direction and came to the other end and I found the booth! BUT it was empty. I couldn't believe that they were sold out and soon noticed a set of doors leading to the next concourse. I went through it and on the other side I found another booth selling programmes! I walked towards it and when I was literally 5 steps from the booth I saw a guy buying a copy of the programme. BUT just as I whipped my wallet out, the guy at the booth said "Sorry sold out"

5 fucking steps faster and I would have gotten that last copy, but no I can't buy it. I can't even begin to describe the mixture of amazement, du lan-ness, and most of all helplessness that I felt at that point. Most of you would know that I like to buy match programmes of matches I go to to keep as mementoes. And this was fucking Arsenal and obviously I wasn't going to miss out on it. But I just can't help feeling that someone or something up there had a few pints too much to drink and was pissing down on me big time, big style. I could have chosen to turn right at the exit, I could have chosen not to go to the toilet, I could have walked FIVE steps faster, but no. I am now stuck with no match programme (it would have been helpful for me to identify who the Arsenal youngsters were...) and I had also missed a goal.

I trudged back to my seat dejectedly, wondering why I had bothered to come at all. After all this was nothing more than a meaningless reserve game and I had to go without one night's proper sleep for it. But as the second half went on, I began to relax more and enjoyed the atmosphere a bit more. The match itself was nothing to comment about. I thought that Eagles and Miller looked good. Djemba Djemba as usual was so shit that I began to think that maybe I can play better than him (at least I think I can sell more jerseys than him right?). For Arsenal, Robin Van Persie and Flamini caught my eye for being skillful and steady respectively. But Arsenal players have this irritating habit of dropping like flies at the slightest contact and rolling about feigning injury before getting up 10 seconds later and sprinting away again. Van Persie was one such bastard. And he brought the most chants of

"Same old Arsenal...always cheating"

Increasingly the game itself was boring me to sleep. Arsenal tried to pass their way back into the game, but the physically superior United never looked like being threatened at all. My attention was diverted more and more by the anti-Arsenal songs. Some of which were

Vieira wo-oh-oh,
Vieira wo-oh-oh.
He gave Giggsy the ball,
and Arsenal won fuck all.
Vieira wo-oh-oh,
Vieira wo-oh-oh
(In memory of 99 FA Cup semis)

Have you ever won the treble have you fuck? *clap clap*
Have you ever won the treble have you fuck? *clap clap*
have you ever won the treble,
ever won the treble,
ever won the treble have you fuck?

Who put the ball in the Arsenal net?
Who put the ball in the Arsenal net?
Who put the ball in the Arsenal net?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
( I couldn't make out the last sentence, sounded like Lauren, but didnt make sense to me...)

Sit down paedophile,
sit down paedophile.
sit down paedophile,
sit down paedophile
(Arsene Wenger has a nickname called paedophile, don't ask me why...I don't know!)

The final whistle came and United were through to the semi finals. But in truth this was nothing to get too excited about. This was practically achieved against an under-20 side. Pats on the back for an efficient job, but nothing more than that. But oh well, at least I can add Arsenal to the list of clubs that I have watched before. I went into the mega store and finally managed to grab one of the last few copies of the match programme and at last felt that something was going right. The coach back to London was another Silverdale coach, and it took only 4 hours 15 minutes to reach London, about 2 hours faster than expected. Good, but not enough to compensate me for whatever I had missed. I reached back home feeling dis-satisfied and just wanting to sleep everything away. Ming tian hui geng hao rite? WRONG.

At about 4pm, I received the dreaded email again.

From : Ticketing Administrator
Sent : Thursday, December 02, 2004 3:59:01 PM
To : "tosh_christ@hotmail.com" tosh_christ@hotmail.com

Subject : REGRET EMAIL

Dear Mr Shihua Toh,

MANCHESTER UNITED V Tottenham Hotspur
OLD TRAFFORD, 04/01/2005
KICK OFF 20:00

Further to your application in respect of the above game, we have to advise
that, because we were oversubscribed, a ballot was held and unfortunately you
were unsuccessful on this occasion.

Please accept our apologies for the disappointment our response will inevitably
cause but trust you understand the difficulties we are faced with when demand
far exceeds supply.

If you would like information on future games, please contact the Ticket and
Match Information line on +44 (0) 870 442 1968. If you would like to apply for
tickets for another match simply visit the website at:
http://www.manutd.com/tickets

If you would like to be reminded by SMS text message when tickets go on sale for
home games then simply register your mobile by calling 0870 451 7442, each text
costs 25p inc VAT. This service is currently only available to supporters on UK
mobile networks only.

Thank you for your continued support which is very much appreciated.

Yours sincerely
Steven Hall
Venue Operations Manager

I was incredibly pissed at this email. Spurs was one of the last 2 clubs that I desperately wants to watch, with Aston Villa being the other one. Last year I got rejected, and this year the same thing happens yet again. This was compounded by the fact that I was trying to get tickets for this match for someone else too. Doubly disappointed and super du lan. I had got tickets for all the small games, but when it came to the really important games that I really want to go like Arsenal in the league, Man City and Spurs, I had been rejected for every single one thus far this season. Why why why????

Dejected, disappointed, du lan, angry, tired and poor are useful words to describe me right now...