CHINESE football is in turmoil. The inaugural Chinese Super League has struggled with huge debts, falling attendances, corruption, poor officiating and player indiscipline. The national side's progress to the 2006 World Cup was halted by the humiliating defeat to Kuwait, the loss of another manager and the prospect of Gerard Houllier taking up the severed reins.

For a country that has been tipped as the next super power in world football, the rickshaws wheels are not just wobbling, they have flown right off. The rise of Yao Ming and the demise of Everton's Li Tie and Manchester City's Sun Jihai has helped basketball overtake football in the popularity ratings among the young, and suddenly every schoolchild is deafened by the sound of bouncing balls on concrete and backboards in the playground. But as "grassroots" football in China crashes into depression, the international amateur leagues of Shanghai are experiencing the polar opposite, boom time.

Spearheading the assault of the strongest amateur league in China - the Shanghai International Football League (SIFL) - to become the most recognizable and feared group of amateur teams in Asia are the Shanghai Shooters. Sponsored by Malone's bar, the Shooters are a motley crew comprising of Hawaiians, Danes, Basques, Britons and many other foreigners who have become the team to beat in Asia. The reigning SIFL league and cup double winners finished off 2004 with the self-proclaimed "grand slam" of Asian international tournaments, following up victories in Bangkok and Shanghai earlier in the year with back-to-back weekend triumphs in Manila and Phuket on the 21st November and 28th November respectively in recent weeks.

Shanghai showdown

It is testament to the rise in quality of the Shanghai leagues that both the Manila and Phuket tournaments boasted all-Shanghai finals amidst scores of teams from across Asia. From the champions of the Tokyo, Taipei, and Bangkok International Leagues to a Hong Kong all star team whose cast list included three ex-Bundesliga players and the 1990 World Cup winner Uwe Bein, it was local rivals "Big Bamboo" Voodoo and the Pudong league's finest "Joy Speed" who fell to defeat at the feet of the Shooters at the final hurdles.

After Mikel Ubis' "Player of the Tournament" performances in Manila, six of the winning team members trouped out of the mud-ridden trench-like pitches of the typhoon-hit Philippines onto the sun-kissed beachside stadium in Phuket, in hope of completing an unprecedented grand slam. With the addition of four sets of fresh legs, the Shooters created the only breeze on Thailand's largest island on the opening day of the seven-a-side tournament, as they brushed all comers aside en route to the knockout stages. Tired legs and weary heads from the night before meant that circumnavigating their way to the final was anything but easy, relying on own goals, intriguing tournament organization, and rehabilitating foot massages instead of the slick passing associated with the Shooters to reach the final showdown.

Perhaps showdown is too light a word. This was war. Not just Shanghai Shooters versus Shanghai Joy Speed, but the best of Puxi versus the best of Pudong. The chance to end the year as the best team in Shanghai, to prove which league is the strongest and - even more pertinent for both sides - it was Shanghai natives versus Shanghai laowai's.

After dominating the game for large periods, the scriptwriter of course had to take the game to penalties after no goals from open play. But unlike coach Jon Jofre's nails and voice no doubt, most fairy tales end with a happy ending. After Jo Best came within inches of securing the win in the last seconds of extra time, it was he who stroked in what was to be the decisive penalty.

Chants of "the best team in Asia!" rung out from the bottom of the resulting pile of celebrating players, who can argue after such an impressive year, if only the professional game in China was quite as uplifting.