Among the seven Dogs, they have Sing and Alex Ko who represents the New Asia College team. In addition, Alex Ko also represents the CUHK team which was the highest competitive level at that moment. From the very beginning, they were the core of DUFC, tactically and practically.

In general, there are two ways to coach a football team. Either you play the team around an excellent player or you fill a very good formation with average players. The former will bring you beautiful football and breath-breaking moments (like Tottenham with Gascoigne and France with Platini). The latter will bring you consistency and success (like Man United in 1990's and Greece in EURO 2004).

For DUFC, neither way was possible. To start with, our core players were rarely available (for Alex Ko, he has more important matches to play and for Sing, he has more important "things" to do). Even if they did available, it was still a big issue to field a full team. OK, even if they could finally gather a full team, they were far from match fit (either after an overnight karaoke or before a must-pass final examination). In short, no one ever see DUFC in their top form, so far.

The good thing is DUFC only played training matches. It did not matter much if they preformed good or bad. At the end of the day, "gathering with the Dogs" and "do some exercises" were the main contents of their matches. Football is a very interesting and enjoyable game to play when "winning or losing" is not a concern. Back then, Dogs used to finish their matches with scores at 15:14. Yes, full of fun!

Economist always says, "There is no sure thing as Free Lunch." That's truth. But, still, you can enjoy free lunch, by Free Ride (for theoretical explanations and daily applications, read "Alex Ko, The Free Rider"). According to the Rules, only official society entitle to book the grass pitch in CUHK, and DUFC is obviously not among one of those. However, Dogs know people inside. Somehow they were able to book the pitch on a regular basis (to protect the insider, we cannot disclose more details here).

On 21 January, 1995, DUFC played their first ever competitive match, against New Asia Statistics. It was a friendly match and both sides were fielded with hire guns. No one remember the line-ups. And no one remember the final scores. From the below photos, we knew that (1) DUFC (to be exact, DUFC + HG) scored at least one goal; (2) they did take a half time break; (3) someone did bring water to the pitch; and (4) why Jackie was the Rebirth of Napoleon.

Of course no one would have any idea on who won the match. But what really matter is they indeed enjoyed the match very much. You can feel it from looking at the smile of Jackie / Wing and the seriousness of Winkins. Don't be surprise but you cannot find the same smile and seriousness for the 10 years thereafter ...

People comes and people goes, after some more matches, two Dogs left the Shatin shelter (who will be followed by the rest a year later). During that year, the two Dogs seldom played football with the other Dogs. It might due to the fact that it was hardly possible for them to go back to the Shatin Shelter. It might due to another fact that they need to spend full time on looking for food to survive. Or both.

On 13 April, 1996, DUFC was invited to a friendly match in Lok Fu small carpet pitch. It was called as "AI grass" and only the fool would know the reason. Except the color, you could never relate the ground to grass. Why not just call it "No grass" pitch.

The opponent was represented by an old mate in CUHK - Esprit. The opponent played regularly and maintained good formation. Their players were skillful and in good form. In the opposite, DUFC have not played together for more than 7 games in the last 9 months and they don't know what formation is. Also, their players were not skillful (right, not including you) and no way near match fit.

Before the match, the odd was 1-1.01 (Esprit & Friends win), 1-800 (draw) and 1-999 (DUFC win). No one fancy any chance to DUFC. Some of the Dogs indeed came for exercise only.

At the end, DUFC won the match, beautifully. They simply out-classed the opponent. I feel sorry that I don't have any memory on the final score and the line-ups. The only two little things that I remember were: (1) Alex Ko scored a you-will-never-forget goal from our own half and (2) Esprit was injured and with blood all over his face.

After saying goodbye (and good game) to bloody Esprit, we never meet him again.

Looking back, it might be the best performance that DUFC would ever achieve.