BLOGSPOT INTERVIEW Steve Darby

One of the requests that your emails have shown is that you would like to read interviews with Perak Coaches and players. As we wish to serve our readers we start today with an interview with our Coach Steve Darby

What do you think of the blogspot so far coach?

A fantastic initiative, it shows again that the FA does care about the fans and are trying to give the fans what they want. I think it complements the yob4ever website. Yob4ever has great photographs and wonderful statistics. I don’t read the forums anymore as I can’t understand the Perak Bahasa! Also sadly I have had a few translated and they were either very childish or downright offensive to players. I was a fan of Liverpool as a kid and my concept of a fan is somebody who supports them win or lose. Some of the abuse our players have been given in these forums from people who hide behind silly names is awful. Everybody is entitled to an opinion, so I just don’t ever read the forums now. So I apologize to all the good and intelligent fans who write in there. But I keep looking at the photos and finding out when my players have their birthdays!

The feed back I have had is that the fans like the photos of training and as you can see we are getting hits from all over the world. I actually know the Malawi “hit” it’s the national coach who is a mate of mine.

As the photos may show we are continuing to use methods drawn from the top clubs all over the world.


There were lots of rumours about foreigners can you give us the truth.

I am delighted to tell you the truth. As even one of the newspapers printed a pack of lies about the process and I asked them to retract them, but as usual I have found that some of the press here are not accountable and just produce lies.

At the end of the season we felt that we did not have enough money to re employ 3 foreigners for this season. We told this to the foreign players so that they would have a chance to get new clubs. Then after some superb financial management by President Dato Muhiyuddin we were later in the year able to make offers to the players. The players were very professional and for example Keita had personal matters he had to resolve in Guinea hence he could not give us guarantees. So as a club we have a responsibility to the team and after a deadline was set we decided to source foreigners from Chile.

The reason we chose Chile was that I had good contacts in Chile whose opinion I respected, we looked at CVs and DVDs and listened to character references and we decided to employ 3 players. It’s always better to employ players from the same background as it helps them settle in quicker, as we have seen with Mario and George in our first two games. The Malaysian season starting in November mean that most leagues in the world were already playing and hence many good players were already contracted. We were lucky that the Chile season was drawing to a close and we could do deals with clubs. As you see Carlos arrived late as he had a commitment to the last game in Chile. But we know this and planned appropriately

I think you will see we have acquired three top class players and excellent professionals.

Fans can write to them in Spanish by going to www.freetranslation.com and go to the English to Spanish section and then email to the blogspot. I know they were impressed with Yoblatino’s Spanish. I just wish people wouldn’t hide behind names!!! Maybe I’m getting too old for blogs!

Do perak FA have targets?

I think Malaysia is the only country in the world that has this question. Does it mean that if you say you want to get to the semi finals of the FA cup that you are happy to lose there? The reality of professional football is that you have to peak once or twice a week and try to win every game. If you do that the targets come anyway. We give 100% every game and try to win away or home.

We have a minimum of 42 games this season in four competitions, with a maximum of 54 if we do well in all.

I take the AFC Cup very seriously. With Home Utd we got to the semi final only to be beaten by a Syrian Army team that was the national team. The next year they went Champions League. That year we were nominated for the AFC team of the Year top three. I see no reason why Perak should not aim for this.


What happened to Fakri?

We signed Fakri on a good first team contract and he was very happy and wanted to play for perak. Then he was ordered to play for the national U19s in the premier league. I felt that this is a selfish decision. I believe that the individual development of the player is the most important thing. Fakri would have started most of our games as we have to play an U21 player. This means he gets a regular game. If he goes to the U19s he will be part of a large squad that will have to be rotated otherwise it’s a waste of time having the squad. In essence I think he will play les games for the U19s than perak, and if he doesn’t the U19s have the wrong philosophy. Also the best training he can get is playing on a daily basis with senior pros both local and foreign and Internationals.

The concept is not wrong as perak have another player in the U19 squad and he would only have played with our Presidents Cup team, hence we encouraged him to go to the U19s to play at a higher standard.

As you can see we have to play an U21 player in every game and if the player is injured he must be substituted by an U21. Ok if you have that rule then get players like Fakri taken of you! So far I have played Hazrul as the U21 player, he’s been with the First team almost two years and came straight from the Youth team, he has a great future. He is being groomed to replace Ahmad Sharul, and Ahmad Sharul thinks this is the right decision! I have also played Arif who is a defensive player, but I was amazed when some of the fans booed him on his debut. He was playing in an unusual position and hadn’t played much last year as he had been injured. Do people think booing is going to make an improvement? Again the majority of fans are intelligent but to boo a kid on debut is pathetic. My job is to pick the best players available and to help those players achieve their potential. Does anybody think a player wants to play badly?


Can the fans write to you.

Of course they can. If they write to this blog and I will respond to anybody who uses a real name!