Ahmad Shah's 'Camelot' moment in Malaysian sport
“Don't let it be forgot,
that once there was a spot,
for one brief shining moment,
that was known as Camelot.”
- Alan Jay Lerner
COMMENT | After a public figure's long life is over and the sound of his presence is still, those in whose regard he has held a high place find his image simplified and summarised.
The figure retained by memory is compressed; faults and accidents drop away, shades and nuances cease to count.
The life stands sharply for a few estimated and cherished things rather than a swarm of possibilities.
Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang, who died at the age of 88 on May 22, will long be remembered for two accomplishments.
He made the unifying symbolism of the office of Yang Di Pertuan Agong palpable to Malaysians, and in the first 16 years of his long presidency of the Football Association of Malaysia (1984-2000), he provided a shield of patronage behind which Paul Mony Samuel turned the FAM into an administrative cynosure Fifa recognised as world class.
Personal charisma and an intuitive understanding of sport factored in the forging of both achievements.
At a two-to-four decade removal in time from those accomplishments, it is difficult to conjure up the mood and atmosphere within which the value of the accomplishments could be properly assessed for what they were...
“Don't let it be forgot,
that once there was a spot,
for one brief shining moment,
that was known as Camelot.”
- Alan Jay Lerner
COMMENT | After a public figure's long life is over and the sound of his presence is still, those in whose regard he has held a high place find his image simplified and summarised.
The figure retained by memory is compressed; faults and accidents drop away, shades and nuances cease to count.
The life stands sharply for a few estimated and cherished things rather than a swarm of possibilities.
Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang, who died at the age of 88 on May 22, will long be remembered for two accomplishments.
He made the unifying symbolism of the office of Yang Di Pertuan Agong palpable to Malaysians, and in the first 16 years of his long presidency of the Football Association of Malaysia (1984-2000), he provided a shield of patronage behind which Paul Mony Samuel turned the FAM into an administrative cynosure Fifa recognised as world class.
Personal charisma and an intuitive understanding of sport factored in the forging of both achievements.
At a two-to-four decade removal in time from those accomplishments, it is difficult to conjure up the mood and atmosphere within which the value of the accomplishments could be properly assessed for what they were.
But at the time when they were being forged, there was something about their significance that could only be comprehended long after those responsible for them had left the scene and the extent of the resultant void was felt.
When Sultan Ahmad Shah arrived at the office of Yang Di Pertuan Agong in April 1979, the country was launched on a social engineering process that would have an insidious impact on the notion that meritocracy is a principle that could not be ignored without grievous cost to the commonweal.
Through his interest in Malaysian sports and his presence when our best sports performers were competing, it seemed that Ahmad Shah as Agong was trying to convey the idea that while certain dynamics abroad in the land were generating divisive tendencies, he at least was keen to remind the sporting public that that which united us in our passion for our stars was greater than that which divided us as citizens of a growlingly fraught polity.
Having been a versatile sportsman in his youth and a sports enthusiast thereafter, His Majesty seemed to instinctively know that sports was the field he could project the unifying symbolism of his office to grand effect.
And he did just that on many sports occasions which he graced and finessed with gestures that seemed to obey those fortunate inspirations when the heart and mind dictate a highly symbolic act at the precise moment when it is needed.
He would hug a national sports performer or touch his or her cheek in a gesture that lifted its recipient and an observing gallery to rapture.
No Agong before Ahmad Shah or after has been able to use the office to such transmogrifying effect.
Country’s no 1 sports fan
During the five-year span (1979-84) of his Agong-ship, he was a frequent presence at international sports events hosted by Malaysia in which the home team was boosted by his regal rooting for them and his interaction with the players when they had done well.
The public endowed him with the accolade, “The Country's No 1 Sports Fan”, for his spectating presence on big sports occasions.
They had not seen a royal like him, barring the country's founding prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, who was also an avid sports fan.
It fell to the Tunku to laud Sultan Ahmad Shah at a dinner in 1985 organised by the Sportswriters Association of Malaysia (SAM) at which the Tunku was tributed for excellence in sports leadership.
Exuding old world charm and sagacity, the Tunku put his finger on the source of Ahmad Shah's sports charisma as the Agong by reminding the audience, in his acceptance speech on receiving the SAM award for excellence in leadership, that the sultan was an “outstanding sportsman” in his youth.
The Tunku was saying that it took a good sportsman to understand others of his ilk.
Likewise, it took a good sports performer to understand and give adequate rein to an outstanding sports administrator.
When he took over the presidency of the FAM in 1984, the sultan chose Paul Mony as the general secretary. The latter deftly transitioned the sport's metamorphosis from amateur to semi-pro and then fully professional status.
From an administrative standpoint, it was a virtuoso performance that drew compliments from Fifa, the soccer's world governing body, one not inclined to condescend to Third World standards.
Paul Mony's alchemy was made possible largely because Ahmad Shah provided the patronly shield that allowed the master administrator to work undisturbed by the mediocritising forces constantly eddying around the national football body.
As in his Agong-ship, so it was in the first 16 years of his presidency of the FAM when Paul Mony was the general secretary, the moment was redolent of Camelot.
This not to say that Ahmad Shah was a royal of unparalleled magnificence; it's just that he did some things – and allowed others – to do comparably deft things with striking panache.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
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