Stories

16S06D was in for a huge surprise on 20 May; they were in the middle of Civics class when members of renowned Spanish football team Valencia CF entered their classroom. Amidst exclamations of excitement and disbelief, the players—Mathew Ryan, Javi Fuego, Santi Mina, Jaume Domenech and club captain Paco Alcácer—gifted their classmate, RI football player Jonathan Chua with an autographed #9 jersey—the number borne by Alcácer himself. The team had been moved by Jonathan's sportsmanship on the pitch during the A Division Football semi-finals, in which he pointed out to the referee that he had been wrongly awarded a penalty. This act of honesty made local headlines last month.


Although Jonathan was grateful and happy for the gift, he was surprised by the amount of attention his deed has garnered. 'I think that whatever I did was just the right thing [to do],' he said. 'I didn't expect there to be so much fanfare.'