After years in the wilderness and a winless season, Tanjong Pagar aim to build on victory

By
- Tweet
- Pin It
Updated: April 17, 2021
733

SINGAPORE: Delwinder Singh is more used to crunching tackles than crunching the numbers but he is well aware of the figure in question.

That was the number of days since Tanjong Pagar United’s last win in Singapore’s professional football league.

And while the numbers don’t lie, sometimes they don’t tell the entire truth, said Delwinder, a defender for the Jaguars.

After all, the team had sat out the competition for five seasons since their last win in 2014. They’d then gone winless through the 2020 campaign.

But still, it rankled.

“Personally, it did bother me quite a bit,” Delwinder explained. “Even on a normal basis as a player … if I win this game today and the next game I lose, it would already affect me.”

Then on Apr 10 there was a breakthrough. The Jaguars mauled the Young Lions 4-0 in the battle of the big cats.

The barren run was over.

Watching from the stands of Jalan Besar Stadium, Delwinder, who had missed the game due to illness, felt a load had been lifted. “One word to really describe everything is relief. That’s the biggest thing, just getting that thing off us and moving on,” he said.

On the pitch, there were smiles all round.

“Usually after games, you would look down or not talk to each other, but this one was all smiles,” defender Shahrin Saberin told CNA.

“Some of them said that it has been a while since they won, like one year … It was a good feeling to win. Especially the coaches, you can see the hard work they put in week in, week out and finally they got the three points they wanted.”

Source: CNA