My experience with Greg.

Ref: Here.

Lets put some context to this story first. Mark was Champion U12 MSSPK in 2005. That was still in the Hamid era. At that time Perak were not sending players to National Close, National Age Group and National Junior was not yet in existence. Perak were only sending players to Merdeka Team events. Information was closely guarded and only those that were old timers or a select few were given information. And things were really bad.

Let me give you one example. There was a selection for the Perak Junior Team for Merdeka and Mark was invited by the VP of PICA to participate as the State Champion at the time. When we got there the VP was told off in public as the information was supposed to be kept secret from us. And we were asked to leave. This gives you an idea of the type of climate Malaysian Chess was under at that time.

During the Hamid era there was no such thing as written criteria for selection, junior or senior according to the information provided to me by the Juniors of that time. It was just who Hamid wanted. Plain and simple.

So when I first met Greg, it was like a breath of fresh air. He encouraged us to go to KL to try for National level. And he was the one that first put up a proper written selection criteria for the Juniors. He also started the National Juniors and then he brought in the first selection for the senior team for SEA games. He made a lot of bold moves which pissed off a lot of people. And FGM did what we could to support him at that time. So what happened after? Why do they want him out now? Coming next in part 2.

But let me put in a brain teaser here. In chess we frequently see this. A bold and correct move and then the failure in courage. We pull back for whatever reasons and then the game is lost. There is the element of judgement, the element of moral conviction and character. You may have noticed that around that time I wrote a story about the scorpion and its nature. That was written because I could see what was happening at that time.