Peter Rajah | Malaysian Icon
The Goalkeeper Peter Rajah was among the best goalkeepers Malaysia has ever produced. His was a lifelong contribution to sport and country, first as player and later as coach, mentor and administrator. Words Siva Sithraputhran | Photography The Star, Malaysia
Peter Edward Rajah was a relative latecomer to football. As a schoolboy in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Malaysia’s eastern Sabah state, he pursued an interest in basketball but his natural athleticism proved too much for just one sport. He caught the attention of Shariman Abdullah, a former Sabah Football Association secretary and treasurer, who saw the makings of a footballer in him. “I had to train him from scratch (but) he was a fast learner,” Shariman was quoted as saying in the Sabahkini news portal in 2014. Soon, the pupil of the La Salle school in Kota Kinabalu was a regular fixture in Sabah’s state team and a few years later, he was vying for the position of goalkeeper in Malaysia’s national football squad with more established goalies, R. Arumugam and Ong Yu Tiang.
THE OLYMPICS THAT WASN’T Peter represented the Sabah state team from 1972 to 1993 and was a member of the national team that qualified for the 1980 Olympics. The qualification was widely celebrated in Malaysia but the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing boycott of the Moscow games put paid to Malaysia’s Olympic football hopes. During the qualifying round for the Moscow Olympics, Peter had put in a sturdy performance, holding off breakaway attacks from Brunei in a match Malaysia went on to win 3-1. Peter, the reserve goalkeeper, won his first full national cap in that match, just a few days shy of his 29th birthday. Match reports from the time also showed that he pulled two good saves in a goalless draw against Japan. Peter did not give many media interviews but one that survives from the time speaks volumes
about his down-to-earth personality. Asked by a New Straits Times reporter about his upcoming 29th birthday on April Fool’s Day in 1980, he said simply: “It’s no big deal, really. You have to be born on some day or other.” In a 2016 interview in the Malay-language daily Berita Harian, Peter’s widow Tracie Gom spoke of his disappointment at not going on to play at the Olympics. He had given a lot, going to train even right after his father’s death. He also had to train far away from where his wife and young children stayed, she added. In all, Peter earned 15 caps for Malaysia’s national side, playing from 1979 to 1981.
SABAH & BEYOND Through the early 1980s, the Sabah team was
Through the early 1980s, the Sabah team was a force to be reckoned with. Peter was among a bunch of Sabahan players to make ripples beyond state borders.
June 2018_Malaysian Icon_ Peter Rajah.indd 79
a force to be reckoned with. Peter was among a bunch of Sabahan players to make ripples beyond state borders. It was hardly surprising when along with strikers James Wong and Hassan Sani, Peter got the call up to the national squad. It had been Peter’s one-handed save in a domestic league match, perhaps a throwback to his basketball-playing youth, that caught the attention of national coach Karl Heinz Weigang. In Sabah, Peter’s football career spanned 1972 to 1993, after which he was employed at the Sabah Sports Board, taking on various administrative roles. Peter was in the role of team motivator in 1996 when Sabah won the domestic football league for the first time. Born in 1951, Peter was the ninth of 10 children. He was a lifelong sportsman with a prowess in tennis, badminton, basketball and golf. He was also a devoted family man and a devout Catholic. Peter succumbed to a heart attack on 14 November 2014. He was 63. He is survived by his wife Tracie, children and grandchildren. ■
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5/18/18 12:24 PM