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Match

By LOH KENG FATT

WILL Manchester United's Ryan Giggs sink Liverpool tonight with yet another of his twisting runs?

The showdown is at 7.30 pm when the Red Devils try to put the heat on a resurgent Liverpool.

The English Premier League game has been anticipated so eagerly that tickets to the Old Trafford kickoff in Manchester were sold out long ago, despite the stadium's over 50,000-strong capacity.

Mr Melvyn Nonis, a tour planner at Ken-Air Tours which can get you to England over the weekend to catch Premier League action, says: "Yes, we have had enquiries but we cannot accede to them."

"Unfortunately, they were all sold out.

"Next time, perhaps, we will plan earlier," says the man who has already had eight to 10 bookings for both the Man U versus Chelsea game next month and the upcoming Man U vs Fiorentina Uefa Champions League tie.

Tonight's Man U-Liverpool confrontation will be shown live on Malaysia's ASTRO SuperSport, Singapore's Sportscity and Singapore Cable Vision's Football Channel.

For anxious fans who cannot receive Sports City, they have been calling up TV repairmen to fine-tune their antennas.

"Demand for our services has gone up, maybe about 10 per cent.

They have to pay up to $200 to fix the antenna," says Mr Richard Lam, owner of Lam Electronics in Geylang.

Despite the boost in earning from today's game, he still grumbles that he has lost 70 per cent of the business to SCV since more people are now wiring up. A check with SCV, however, shows that requests for new subscriptions have been consistent, with no apparent boost from today's match.

However, over in Geylang, budget hotels are fielding healthy enquiries and bookings for rooms which are cable-ready.

At Hotel 81, for example, operations manager Chris Ng, 44, says: "We should be getting more bookings because of the game.

"Normally, we have a lot of football fans coming in every week, especially when matches are held early in the morning.

"We get about a hundred bookings in our 10 hotels in the Geylang and Joo Chiat areas."

The cost is about $59-$109 for the whole night, he adds.

Meanwhile, fans like Mr Roland Lee, 24, president of Friends Of Old Trafford fan club, cannot wait for the action to get started.

"For the past two years, we have had gatherings at members' houses. In 1997, we had a gathering at the YMCA in Orchard Road for 130 people to watch the game," says Mr Lee whose club has about 530 members.

It was only this week that he found out that Sports City was beaming the match so it was too late to book the YMCA again. "So we may gather at someone's house, and maybe about 20 of us will be there," he says.

Over at radio station Power 98, the deejays have more than just passion riding on the game.

If Liverpool wins, deejays Rod Monteiro and Justin Ang will have to wear bikinis.

E-mail your comments to [email protected] and turn to page 89 of The Straits Times for more on the match.

Tetapi ketika mereka menikmati populariti, kumpulan boyband Britain, 911, mengambil keputusan untuk berpisah saja.

Kumpulan tiga jejaka yang dikenali kerana cara menari mereka yang keletah dan lagu-lagu up-tempo seperti All I Want Is You itu kini serupa dengan tajuk album mereka, Moving On -- mahu mengorak langkah seterusnya.

Lee Brennan, 25 tahun, Jimmy Constable, 26 tahun, dan Spike Dawbarn, 25 tahun, kini mahu memperjuangkan impian dan mencapai cita-cita masing-masing.

Ketika dihubungi kelmarin, jurucakap syarikat rakaman EMI Singapura mengesahkan pembubaran kumpulan itu dan sekali gus menghantar satu kenyataan rasmi berbunyi:

"Kumpulan 911 mengesahkan hari ini bahawa mereka akan berpisah."

Keputusan 911 -- yang ditubuhkan dalam 1995 dan mencipta nama di United Kingdom (UK), Eropah dan Asia Tenggara -- untuk berpisah ketika di puncak kejayaan itu mungkin satu langkah wajar.

Lihat saja Gary Barlow dan Robbie William, bekas anggota Take That, yang kini lebih dikenali. Begitu juga dengan Louise dari kumpulan girlband Eternal dan Gerri Halliwell dari Spice Girls.

Sebenarnya, sejak awal tahun lalu, telah ada desas-desus bahawa mereka mungkin berpisah tetapi anggota kumpulan itu menafikan dakwaan tersebut.

Awal sebelum ini, beberapa tabloid di luar negara juga pernah melaporkan bahawa kumpulan yang popular dengan lagu A Little Bit More, Bodyshakin', Party People dan The Journey itu bakal berpisah.

Akhbar The Sun dalam lelaman Internet Dotmusic dilaporkan berkata bahawa 911 tidak akan lagi bersama setelah mengadakan konsert mereka di serata UK September lalu.

"Cerita itu timbul entah dari mana, malah saya ditukil berkata macam-macam, tetapi semuanya itu mengarut," kata Brennan ketika itu.

Kalau tiada angin, tak 'kan pokok bergoyang?

Akhirnya, ketiga-tiga pemuda itu mendedahkan rancangan mereka buat pertama kalinya melalui satu siaran radio Britain, Radio 1, kelolaan Chris Mayles baru-baru ini.

Dalam kenyataan keluaran EMI Singapura kelmarin, 911 berkata:

"Kami telah menikmati keseronokan sepanjang empat tahun lalu dan kami berasa sudah tiba masanya untuk melangkah dan meneruskan projek masing-masing.

"Kami ingin mengucapkan terima kasih kepada semua yang telah bekerjasama dengan kami dan memberi sokongan dan dedikasi... terima kasih kepada para peminat yang menjadikan empat tahun itu tempoh menakjubkan untuk kami imbas kembali...

"Kasih sayang dan sokongan itu sesuatu yang sukar dilupakan."

Sejauh ini, 911 sudah pun menghasilkan empat buah album, The Journey, Moving On, There It Is dan A Little Bite More, termasuk album kompilasi bertajuk The Greatest Hits.