Club

As Hougang United, the club has only a short history since its official re-branding in 2011. But as the only football club residing in the Northeastern side of Singapore, the Cheetahs has had a long and complex history since its founding in 1981 as Marine Castle United Football Club.

As MCUFC, the club was formed by a group of Newcastle United supporters in Singapore and joined the S.League in 1998, two years after its inauguration.

An interesting thing to note though, was that despite the club’s lack of results on the pitch, Hougang Stadium had always enjoyed good attendances and atmosphere.

The appointment of English coach Trevor Morgan also gave the club a distinctive English style of exciting flank plays. The club also had its fare share of ‘marquee players’ in the earlier days like Grant Holt (formerly Norwich City), Michael Currie (formerly Queens Park Rangers) and Kim See Man (former South Korea National Youth).

2001 was the final season they were known as Marine Castle United F.C., as the club went through rapid changes in the following years with renaming and restructuring all happening. They were known as Sengkang Marine from 2002 to 2003 before sitting out from the league in 2004. They returned as Paya Lebar Punggol in 2005 and then changed their name again in 2006 to Sengkang Punggol.

The club enjoyed moderate success, qualifying for the Singapore Cup semi-finals in 2002 and 2011. Their best ever season was no doubt the 2011 League Cup where they finished runners-up after losing to Albirex Niigata (S) in the penalty shootout.

Current team

This season started off brightly for the Cheetahs with their two Brazilian strikers making the headlines with their goal scoring exploits, beating almost everybody except for Young Lions and Brunei DPMM.

Geison Moura and Diego Gamma together are accountable for 19 of the club’s 45 goals scored. Japanese midfielder Shunsuke Nakatake, who made his S.League debut this season with Hougang surprised many with his strong anchorman plays and distributions while Igor Cerina holding the defense well.

Former Geylang Prime League striker Wahyudi Wahid who joined Hougang this season also had a successful season as a defender.

Head Coach

Credits, however, has to be given to Amin Nasir who rose to the head coach position after Johana Johari’s dismissal in August 2013. Amin was initially appointed as a caretaker coach in the final stages of the 2013 S.League but the club decided to keep their faith in him and officially appointed him the head coach in the start of 2014.

Despite not progressing far in the RHB Cup, Amin did well to lead the team to the semi-finals of the 2014 Starhub League Cup where they suffered the same fate as in the RHB Cup; getting dumped out by the Jaguars.