Beware. We're on a roll!

There's a certain buzz around our office at this moment. The confidence is there and most players are excited. We're ready for the NPC-GAB Inter-Media Futsal Championships. More than ready.

On Aug 30, we'd given ourselves a surprise Merdeka present. I tell you, if you don;t know the meaning of surprise, you just have to look at the history of the New Straits Times football team.

Perennial whipping boys, some had branded us. For me personally, I knew I didn't have to take days off to go and play in inter-media futsal tournaments, which usually start in the mornings. Well, we'd never make it past the first round, thus we do not have to hang around to play in the knock-out stages which are usually scheduled from the afternoon onwards. Sometimes, I'd even have enough time to rush home for a proper shower and get back to the office in time for work.

Not anymore. I think from now, my colleagues and I probably got to ask our bosses to switch our offdays. Our fortunes are changing.

We went in like men possessed and made it all the way to the semi-finals of the Malay Mail Boleh Blah Cup, held in conjunction with the tabloid's departure from the NSTP Group earlier in August.

Then on Aug 30, the tournament in which we'd always been thrashed came up - the NSTP Inter-Department 9-a-side Football Championship.

This happened:

We'd been drawn with Branding, BB2 A and favourites Finance in the same group, where we were expected to bid our usual early goodbyes in the 16-team tournament. But no.

That rainy Saturday was when our big goalkeeper Les(Sea)lie Andres produced the inspiration that would forever be etched in our memories. He saved thre (3) penalties. He rushed out to block a one-on-one attempt from an ESS (defending champions) striker in the quarterfinals that was touted as the save of the tournament. Our new find, Jeevan of NIE proved he was a star in the making by scoring all our goals. For once, T.N. Alagesh's drive all the way from Kuantan to be with the team was not in vain. For once, it felt good to send my boss an sms notifying him we were gonna be late for work!

Of course, the thunderstorm later in the evening spoiled everything just when we were on a high after knocking out favourites and defending champions the Editorial Support Services (ESS) in the quarterfinals. It was then deemed by the organisers that due to the weather, it was not suitable to play and from the semis onwards all matches were decided on penalties. We will forever wonder what would have been, had there been sunshine instead of rain. Can you believe, we also won the Datuk Manja Ismail Fairplay Trophy. When I checked, we'd not even conceded a single freekick, not commited a single foul and unlike rivals Berita Harian and Harian Metro, we didn't register a single yellow card.

Now, Nov 2 is the date set for the NPC-GAB Inter-Media Futsal Championships. I'm sure many of our foes have prepared well. But we're fired up. We're training twice a week instead of once as usual from this week onwards. We finished third in this meet last year and on recent form, I think it would only be just for us to aim a step higher. Perseverance does pay. We kept trying for years and now we're set on reaping the benefits.