Cycling was my main beat in the early 1990s, which coincided with Abu Samah’s baby steps into the presidency of the MNCF.
His tenure, which began in February 1990, was plagued by internal issues, constitutional crises and turmoil which only subsided decades into his leadership.
Such was the split between two warring factions that refused to call for a ceasefire that two Sports Ministers, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Senator (later Tan Sri) Annuar Musa, acted as mediators to solve the impasse, but in vain.
The rift between the two rival groups was so deep that a reconciliation was never actually in sight even until the Commonwealth Games in 1998 drew closer.
The late Abu Samah and I did not see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues.
My point of reference was also his biggest critic then, the late Daud Abu Kassim, deputy president of the Federal Territory-Kuala Lumpur Cycling Association (KLCA) who was part of the original Malaysian Cycling Federation (MCF) administration in the late 70s.
In his capacity at KLCA, Daud was fond of sending registered letters to the media, questioning MNCF and accusing the national body of making decisions against their constitution.
Although I must confess my reports on MNCF were harsh and hard-hitting on Abu Samah’s leadership, the businessman from Melaka remained a gentleman, always soft-spoken and obliging. Most of the time we argued in a civilised manner.
But clearly, it was never plain sailing for Abu Samah from Day 1.
He took over the MNCF presidency at the height of a four-year old bitter war which erupted in 1988 when MNCF president Tan Sri Elyas Omar was defeated by Perak CA president Datuk (now Tan Sri) Darshan Singh Gill by 10 votes.
Elyas’ defeat triggered a bitter fight resulting in the five affiliates pulling out of the MNCF.
Subsequently, Federal Territory CA and Kelantan CA were expelled from MNCF.
The crisis took a turn for the worse when seven associations – FT, Kelantan, Selangor, Terengganu, Pahang, Negri Sembilan and Sarawak – broke away to form a rival body calling themselves Malaysian Amateur Cycling Association (MACA) or PLBAM in their Malay acronym.
MACA, however, failed to gain recognition from the world body UCI.
MACA had a core team of administrators such as seasoned campaigners Datuk Wira Mazlan Ahmad, Daud, Fadzil Othman and Shariff Hamzah who all served the
late Datuk Harun Idris as President of MCF.
When MCF were deregistered by the Registrar of Societies (ROS) in 1981, the team revived the national body under a different name – MNCF led by Tan Sri Syed Kechik Syed Mohamed Al Bukhary.
Syed Kechik, uncle and father-in-law of Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary, was the Syed Mokthar of his time, running a business empire with interests in banking, entertainment and property development.
On top of his political and business interests, Syed Kechik, who passed away in 2009, owned a film production house producing several box-office hits such as Mekanik, which featured the late Mokhtar Dahari in a cameo role and Sumber Ilhamku.
At the root of the problem was the fight to build a velodrome.
As the Lord Mayor of Kuala Lumpur, Elyas was the driving force to build the KL velodrome in Cheras.
Ipoh-based lawyer Darshan, by contrast, was driving public sentiment to build a timber track in Ipoh, eventually named the Velodrome Rakyat.
Both wanted to fulfil an idea mooted as early as 1969 when Harun was MCF president. By 1975, Harun had promised to build a velodrome and identified a land in Jalan Timur in Petaling Jaya but the project did not get off the ground.
Despite the bumpy ride, Abu Samah, like the rest of the aforementioned names, deserved due credit for their tireless efforts behind the scenes.
At least now we have the National Velodrome in Nilai and an Olympic silver medallist to be proud of.
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