46 Monday 20 October 2008 ●
THE NEW PAPER ★
Sports
In good company
Every Monday in the Singapore at Large series, we profile
Singapore sports with a national or grassroots
perspective. Today, LIM SAY HENG explores the revival
of the sporting scene among companies here
T
HE CORPORATE sports scene is
hotting up again after a lengthy
absence, following the demise of
the once-popular Business Houses
League.
Last week, the Football Association
of Singapore (FAS) and Fico Sports Hub
launched the National Corporate
League, while the Singapore Bowling
Federation introduced its new Canon
SuperSeries.
The New Paper also understands
that the Singapore Cricket Association
is also in the midst of setting up a
similar league targeting companies,
and has sent out application forms.
They will join the netball’s
three-year-old PricewaterhouseCoop-
ers Corporate League.
These competitions mark the renais-
sance of the corporate sporting scene in
Singapore, which peaked in the 1980s
with sports like football, badminton
and squash boasting active participa-
tion rates in their corporate leagues
(see other story).
And this resurgence can be attribut-
ed to more and more companies plac-
ing an emphasis on the work-life bal-
ance, and team building through
sports.
Excellent platform
“The Canon SuperSeries is an excel-
lent platform for companies to foster
better internal cohesion,” said Lim Kok
Hin, Senior Director and General Man-
ager of the Business Imaging Solutions
Division at Canon Singapore.
“It also acts as a platform for effec-
tive business networking, through the
fun and engaging sport of tenpin bowl-
ing.”
Also, the formation of such leagues
also signifies the increased involve-
ment of companies in local sports, a
desired outcome under the Sporting
Culture Committee report, released ear-
lier this year.
This report represents the roadmap
for development of sports in Singapore.
“You can achieve a virtuous cycle in
which sports play off business, and busi-
ness benefits from sports,” said Com-
munity Development, Youth and
Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in
June.
“I think once we can get more NSAs
(national sports associations) on this
kind of circuit, all our NSAs and hopeful-
ly many more sports will be on an up-
ward trajectory,” he added, at the
launch of Canon’s five-year sponsor-
ship of the Singapore Bowling Federa-
tion.
The revival of the corporate leagues
Singapore At Large
WORK PLAY: Top, Singapore Bowling Federation president Jessie Phua launches the
new bowling corporate league, the Canon SuperSeries. Above, the FAS’ National Corporate
League kicks off.
also serves a very important purpose –
to create awareness and increase sup-
port for local sports among Singapore-
ans.
“The key point is not only to play
football, but also to excite Singaporeans
to support local football,” said Senior
Minister of State (Law & Home Affairs)
Ho Peng Kee at the FAS event last week.
“Hopefully this corporate league is
the catalyst to excite everyone for local
football,” added the FAS president.
The signs have been promising so
far, with big name companies signing
up for the leagues, despite the econom-
ic downturn.
PICTURES: SINGAPORE BOWLING FEDERATION, FAS
The five-week National Corporate
League has attracted big names like
NatSteel and Marina Mandarin Singa-
pore, while the netball series has seen a
five-fold increase in number of teams
since its inception.
“At the beginning we only had six
teams in the league, which was only
open to women,” said Cyrus Medora,
executive director of Netball Singapore.
“But we have received so much inter-
est from men that we have since intro-
duced the mixed categories.”
“Now there are even more men than
women playing in the corporate
league!”
“The Canon
SuperSeries is an
excellent platform for
companies to foster
better internal
cohesion. It also acts
as a platform for
effective business
networking, through
the fun and engaging
sport of tenpin
bowling.”
– Lim Kok Hin, Senior Director and
General Manager of the Business Imaging
Solutions Division at Canon Singapore
Corporate sports
in the past
THERE used to be a very active scene among
companies here, with many taking part in the
Business Houses Leagues for badminton, squash
and football, among others.
But dwindling resources and the loss of dedi-
cated administrators have caused these
once-popular leagues to fade into obscurity in
the last decade.
At its peak, the squash league attracted about
800 players, ranging from national players to
novices.
However, the competition came to an end in
1988, after a 10-year run, as the Singapore
Squash Rackets Association could not find the
funds to continue operating the league.
History
While the squash league lasted only a decade,
the history of Business Houses League football
can be traced to pre-World War Two days.
In its heyday, the league boasted three divi-
sions, with scores of national players among the
ranks of big companies such as Singapore Air-
lines and Singapore Aerospace.
Up till 1992, the winner of the league’s Divi-
sion 1 could qualify for the Premier League (the
pre-cursor to the S-League) via a four-team
play-off.
But the league started its gradual fade into
obscurity with the demise of long-serving Singa-
pore Business Houses Football League secretary
K. S. Manickam in 1993.
Dubbed “Mr Business Houses”, the late Man-
ickam was credited with building the league’s
image from scratch, after the British left in the
1950s. – LIM SAY HENG