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■香港男足在今屆東亞運歷史性奪金，創造傳奇一刻。 資料圖片
Fai
The East Asian Games 2009 came and went. For two weeks, the mass media reported it. Yet, the overall impression was that the local response to the Games was at best lukewarm(adj.冷淡的). People complained about the organizers for not doing a better job of publicizing the event beforehand. But perhaps the memory of 2008 Summer Olympics is still fresh in people's mind. It is difficult to whip up(phr.v激起)any collective enthusiasm for yet another sports extravaganza.
Inside the stadium, however, the spectators did not show any lack of enthusiasm at all. I bought tickets for two events: ruby 7 and soccer. I grew up playing the latter, but knew next to nothing about the former. Luckily, ruby 7 is a game so packed with action that one does not need to understand the rules to enjoy it. Just watching the players running from one end of the field to the other in pursuit of the ball and piling upon one another so often is exciting enough. The audience on the day that I went to watch the games did not disappoint either; it cheered and booed(v.喝倒彩)at the right places. It managed to make quite a racket(n.喧吵)even though it failed to fill up the stadium.
The final soccer game, scheduled on the second to the last day of the entire East Asian Games, was yet another story. It drew the largest crowd than any of the events, partly because soccer is a long beloved sport in Hong Kong, and partly because the Hong Kong team was going to play against the Japan team for the gold medal.
I arrived with my family at the stadium at 2:00 p.m. to watch the bronze medal game between South Korea and North Korea. The game was quite enjoyable, but it did not compare to the highly charged atmosphere when the Hong Kong team and the Japan team began to warm up in the field at around 4:15 p.m. More and more people came streaming into the stadium. Many of them came specifi-cally(adv.特別地) to cheer for the Hong Kong team. They arrived with drums and flags, all ready to shout themselves hoarse. A few rows from where we were sitting, there was a group of Japanese fans in blue shirts. Clearly outnumbered, they were nevertheless fearless in voicing their support for that national team.
What happened in the next 3 hours on the stands was as exciting as in the field. The noise was deafening but contagious. There was a lot of chanting, accompanied by the beating of the drums. People were on their feet for the most part of the game. No sooner had they sat down than they jumped up again because something electrifying just happened in the field. At one point, someone unfurled(v.展開) a big Hong Kong SAR flag and passed it around the stadium. It made its way over the heads of the spectators who eagerly passed it to the people standing to them. Of course, like any other big sport event, there was no doing away with the wave, which went unbroken around the stadium 7 times.
I did not say anything about the game itself because by now, the outcome is common knowledge: Hong Kong and Japan tied at the end of the game and after playing 30 minutes of additional time, they tied again at 1 to 1. The game was finally decided by penalty kicks. Japan missed two shots and Hong Kong one. The gold medal went to Hong Kong, which had won the game fair and square (adv.公正地，絕無取巧地). It is a day that Hong Kong soccer fans will remember for a long time. ■kingfaitam@gmail.com
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