Abstract

The Malaysia Cup is a soccer competition dating back to 1921. What began as a small competition between select Malay states grew over decades into the major soccer competition that involved all Malaysian states as well as the national teams of Brunei and Singapore. By looking at nation-building through the lens of the Malaysia Cup, the article provides an insight into the ordinary Singaporeans’ ‘national imagining’; of a national consciousness that resembles what Benedict Anderson has called a ‘deep, horizontal comradeship’. In other words, the national imagining yielded by participation in the Malaysia Cup stood outside or separate from the government’s efforts to construct the Singaporean nation.

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