October 1, 2004

It was a Thai night as Thai J Surachai, Home United midfield maestro, walked off with the S-League Player of the Year Award for 2004 & on the same night Tampines Rovers' Vorawan Chitavanich took home the Coach of the Year.

Home United coach Darby was delighted that his charge, J Surachai, had been recognised, saying it could not have happened to a better professional & the players (Home United) certainly support the choice.

Also for Darby he always has a hard time getting the Thai off the field to rest.

After receiving his award last night, an emotional Surachai said he had no regrets spending the latter part of his career in Singapore as well as revealing future such as continuing living here & applying to become a Singapore Permanent Resident.

The ex-Thai international said Singapore is like home after all these years & he along with his family like it so he wanted his daughter to grow up here.

Also with one more year left on his playing contract at Home United he hope to be able to find a job here after that.

Not that it will be a problem as he holds a degree in Physical Science & also has an AFC 'A" coaching licence. Also earlier this year, Thailand offered him the assistant national coaching position, but he spurned the offer as he wanted to honour his contract with Home United.

On being recognised as the best player in Singapore for 2004, he said he never expected to win the award. He was just happy to have just been nominated as he was getting older. But now reaching the end of his playing days, he feel it is a good time to win this & would like to thank his coach, team-mates & everyone else who helped him to win it.

Meanwhile Countryman Vorawan, 44, hailed his coaching award as one of the biggest achievements in his career. He became the first Thai coach to receive the award, and it was his second nomination, after 2001.

He said winning the title with Tampines Rovers was fantastic but now, being given this honour makes everything even more special. Still he would not have been able to win this award if his team had not played so well this season. They have won the championship & booked a place in the Cup final. That is great credit to the players.

For that the Stags were rewarded handsomely as both Nazri Nasir & Mustafic Fahrudin won the Singapore Pools People's Choice award & Young Player of the Year award respectively.

Nazri paid tribute to the fans, who voted him the People's Choice award winner saying he is very surprised to get this award at this age – sudah tua lah (I'm already old in Malay) but he really appreciate the fact that the fans still recognise his efforts despite all the criticism that he had. He got to thank them for still believing in him.

23-year-old Fahrudin, the first foreign player to receive the Young Player of the Year award said this has been a great season for Tampines & this award is motivation for him to become a better player.