D-Day...

...in Kuala Terengganu.

Following the collapse of the roof structure at the RM300 million Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium in Gong Badak, Terengganu football teams have no choice but to go back playing at the old Sultan Ismail Nasirudin Shah.

The stadium which has seen so many memories in the past, went into a small re-construction when the steel structure supporting part of the stands were removed for safety reasons. This reduced the capacity of the stadium from 20,000 to around 15,000.

The Football Association of Malaysia have provisionally approved the usage of Sultan Ismail Nasirudin Shah Stadium as the home ground for both Terengganu and T-Team during their Malaysian League campaign for this season and most probably next season too.

However, there have been a number of complaints in regards of the state of the pitch and also the flood-lights which according to certain quarters do not meet the required standards. In addition to that, the stadium pitch also has seen a number of non-football activities being held there.

There was the Search 'Di Awan Biru' concert and recently an equine event, The Sultan's Cup pre-launching ceremony was held there. The latter especially would take a heavy toll on the already bad pitch.

This has prompted the Kuala Terengganu City Council to carry out improvement works on the stadium by replacing the bulbs of the floodlights, patching up certain areas of the pitch and re-installing the security fences around the ground.

Whether these actions would satisfy FAM technical delegates will be known after their visit to the stadium on Sunday.

For the sake of football in Terengganu, mad redo1 hopes they will.

...

Bekang...

...anybody?

It is another Terengganu delicacy which I remember having for the first time when I was eight years old in Pasir Panjang. It was during a school holiday and I was staying at a relative's house to prepare for a function. It was quite vague but I remember lining up before this old lady who had a reputation as the best bekang maker in town. If not, why the line was so long with people waiting patiently to get their hands on the bekang.

The bekang comes with two sauces, the sweet sauce and cream sauce. My preference is the former. The sweet sauce (above) is brown in colour, most probably due to the use of brown sugar while the cream sauce is white.

The bekang basically is made from rice flour and eggs. According to my mother, the bekang will taste perfect if the right mix of the two ingredients is achieved. However I found the current makers of bekang tend to hold back on the eggs which makes the bekang a bit less tasty.

Nowadays, the place is no longer there. The old lady most probably has long gone to meet the Maker. We can always look for the current version but it is not what it used to taste like. Then again, we always think that foods from yester-years taste better than their counterparts today.

...

Surprised...

...I Was Not.

I was on my way to the office when calls and text messages started to come in on my handphone conveying the same message: SULTAN MIZAN STADIUM COLLAPSE!

When the first call came in I thought it was referring to current work being carried out at the Sultan Ismail Nasirudin Shah Stadium. However when more and more messages coming in then I decided it was best to check it out myself.

On the Sulltan Mahmud Bridge the wailing of the siren a police car more or less confirmed something bad had taken place. Perhaps it was still quite early as the traffic was smooth all the way to the Gong Badak Sports Complex.

As I approached the area I could see from a far the extent of the damage. The whole structure was still intact except for the roof which now has been reduced to an unrecognizable heap of steel and concrete. The crowd was getting bigger as news began the get around about the unfortunate event.

At the time the police line was still quite near to the stadium and the crowd was able to get quite close to the stadium. As I began to walk away after taking a few shots of the place, the Civil Defence Team personnel began to set up a new line to ensure the public would not be exposed to any danger.

The funny thing about the whole event was that it WAS NOT UNEXPECTED.

A year ago during the construction of the stadium the roof had collapsed once but it was not widely reported since there was no life lost and it would be a very bad publicity to the state which was about to host the SUKMA Games.

One interesting thing was an engineer who was involved in the construction of the Indoor Stadium advised me that if I have the choice, do not sit at the grandstand. It was something that immediately came to my mind upon seeing the extent of the damage.

This event certainly triggered a number events. As for mad redo1 it means a number of things that has to be done pronto in order to find a new home for the Turtles before the Super League resume on 16 June with a match against kL PLUS.

The best of luck to me then.

...