Skip to main content

Football: Parvin steps up as women's football torchbearer


Veteran football player Sharda Parvin has joined Lim Kia Tong's team as the female candidate who will contest at the upcoming Football Association of Singapore (FAS) election on April 29.

Parvin, 32, will run for the individual female member position in the FAS council. At least one female has to be in the elected 15-member council, but she does not have to join the nine-member slate.

Lim's counterpart Bill Ng has not unveiled his female candidate yet, even though Singapore National Olympic Council vice-president Annabel Pennefather and 2015 SEA Games' chief medical officer Dr Teoh Chin Sim have joined Ng's slate.

While Parvin is not as high profile as Pennefather or Teoh, she believes she knows local women's football at the ground level.

She said: "I know the scene because I've been in this sport since 2001. I know the complaints, the issues, the struggles because I'm from the ground and I'm in their shoes.

"This is the first time a female member will be in the council, and the best person to represent is someone who has been a part of women's football.


I know the complaints, the issues, the struggles because I'm from the ground and I'm in their shoes. The best person to represent is someone who has been a part of women's football.

SHARDA PARVIN, Tanjong Pagar United footballer and Pathlight School educator, feels her credentials puts her in good stead.
"Over the years, there were many things I'm grateful for, yet there are things which I wish I could change. So now that I'm given a voice, why not?"

Parvin grew up sleeping in the living room of a three-room flat which she still shares with her grandmother, 82, and uncle, 45.

Her uncle would wake up in the middle of the night to watch football games on TV, and had brought her to the old National Stadium to watch Malaysia Cup games.

While she would play football with the boys during her secondary school days, it was only in 2001 that she joined her first competitive team at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) Bishan.

From 2005-2007, she played in the women's league for the now-defunct Commonwealth Palace. She then played for the Nanyang Technological University team from 2007 to 2014, and became their captain in 2011.

The Liverpool fan also played for the Police Sports Association (2012-2013) and most recently, the H-Two-0 Women's Dream Team (2013-2016).

She will be playing for debutants Tanjong Pagar United in the coming Women's Premier League season.

Using her years of experience, she wants to help to strengthen the existing pipeline to develop youth and women's football at the schools and grassroots level.

"Women's football has been growing quickly and it's getting more recognition now. The Under-16 girls and youth players are doing really well," said Parvin, who is also an educator at Pathlight School.

"I hope to be able to build on that and increase the talent pool through more outreach efforts in the community level and schools."

While there is still a month to go until the election, she is raring to get started.

She said with a laugh: "I've already thought through and made notes of what I'm going to say during the first meeting."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Utah gymnastics: Utes enjoy down time before ramping up again for Regionals

Members of Utah's gymnastics team will get back to work in the coming days to prepare for the NCAA regionals on April 1 after a few days of rest and light work to let their bodies recover. The fourth-ranked Utes are the top seed in the Fayetteville, Ark., regional, where they will compete against No. 9 Denver, No. 16 Cal, No. 21 Auburn, No. 27 Arkansas and No. 28 Central Michigan. The Utes, who won the Pac-12 title with a season-high 197.925, continue to put their focus on clean landings, the one area in which they feel they can improve, Utah co-coach Megan Marsden said. The Utes are using practice competitions and other means to focus on the landings. "They enjoy competition among themselves, and it helps to have a reason and purpose at this point in the year to keep it fresh," Marsden said. The good news is the Utes feel they can focus on the details because their training has been solid throughout the season. If anything, the coaches are toeing the line bet...

IPL 2017: Complete list of players missing IPL 10 due to injuries

Before the IPL kickstarts its tenth edition teams losing players to injuries has become the trend. With less than four days to go for the tournament to begin, some of the biggest names of world cricket have already pulled out. Royal Challengers Bangalore are seemingly the worst-hit. Their skipper Virat Kohli is already nursing a shoulder injury and will be out for a couple of weeks. Again, yesterday it was confirmed that their other star batsman KL Rahul, too will miss the season as undergoes a surgery. Rahul was injured during the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy and as per reports he will soon be travelling to London to undergo surgery. Rahul had earlier given hints about his injury and how the injury was stopping him from playing extravagant strokes. After skipper Virat Kohli, KL Rahul is the second Indian batsman from RCB who has got injured. In Kohli’s absence AB de Villiers was supposed to lead the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) side. However, that seems to be...

India will be fine without Kohli: Smith

Australia skipper confident India can cover the potential loss of Kohli in the fourth Test Australia captain Steve Smith has no doubt Ajinkya Rahane will be able to adequately lead India in the final Test should captain Virat Kohli be ruled out through injury. Kohli will need to pass a fitness Test on his injured right shoulder in order to play in the series-decider in Dharamsala, with youngster Shreyas Iyer called in as cover. When Kohli left the field after falling heavily attempting to prevent a boundary midway through the opening day of the third Test in Ranchi, Rahane, as vice-captain, was instilled as the interim skipper for the next 89 overs.  Australia were bowled out for 451 under Rahane’s watch but Kohli returned in Australia’s second innings, barely fielding a ball at first slip during the visitors’ 100 overs at the crease. With Kohli racing against the clock to be fit for perhaps the biggest Test of his career, Smith expects Rahane to once again fill in as his counte...