For Lum, moving back to Australia would not guarantee a full-time professional contract and he pondered what options lay ahead for him if he was to have returned at some point this year.
“Obviously again that started (with me considering studying) the university course and all that and thinking what am I going to do when I go home? I’m going to pick up coaching and play football and make a bit of money for football but no, it was a big consideration going home because it is what it is.”
黃威2020-12-13 19:15:32
At Kitchee, Lum played with global names like Diego Forlan and Moussa Sissako. Was Lum star-struck and what were Diego Forlan’s driving skills like?
“MoMo (Moussa Sissako) was very normal and he was down to earth and he was funny. Obviously, Diego was a bit different due to his higher profile. He was one of the guys and he was just a normal guy, I would pick his brain and ask him so many questions. Obviously, I’m a big Manchester United fan so I would ask him questions about Beckham, Ferguson and Scholes and I would be there always listening to his stories and it was great.”
黃威2020-12-13 19:16:10
Lum fears for the future of the Hong Kong game with the shortage of talent coming through twinned with a lot of senior players deciding to retire or who will call it a day very soon.
“That is an interesting question because obviously, I’m well aware of the young kids coming through, especially the boys at Kitchee. And for me, there is a big generational gap here in HK.”
Big names are retiring and no one seems to be taking their places.
“If you look at the people now coming to retirement, obviously in the last couple of months, Chan Siu Ki but also look at the players like Lo Kwan Yee that are coming to the end and then, even on top of that, the guys that are naturalized, they’re all coming to the end. There is a big gap now between those players and the level of the players coming through. If you look at the players around my age, from 25 to 30, I’m 28 and from 25 to 30 there is not much there at all in terms of talent.”