By Sutherland, Duncan written on 09-Feb-2009
National Library Board Singapore

Comments on article: InfopediaTalk

Daisy Tan Quee Hong, née Lim (b.12 February 1926, Singapore - d. 27 January 2004, Singapore) helped establish the Singapore Women's Netball Association (now Netball Singapore) and led it for twenty-five years. She also co-founded and led the Asian Netball Federation. Despite minimal resources, Tan brought the world championships to Singapore, established a national team and saw netball become the most popular sport for Singapore girls.

Early life
Tan was the second of five children of a court's interpreter and a teacher. They lived on St George's Road and she learned netball early, at her church and at Raffles Girls' School, where her education was interrupted by the Japanese invasion. During the occupation she was employed by Echigoya textiles, then learnt stenography and worked at Seletar air base. 

After liberation she chose to work for the British army rather than return to school, then left in 1950 for Fraser and Neave (F & N), where she would work for almost thirty years. F & N offered its employees generous recreational facilities on River Valley Road and Tan organised and captained a netball team from the typing pool.

Major accomplishments
Development of netball in Singapore
Tan's team was one of many in Singapore but the popular sport needed a national body to regulate and promote it. She and fifteen others therefore founded the Singapore Women's Netball Association (SWNA) in late 1962 and Tan served as secretary until 1966, when she became president. The SWNA was one of Southeast Asia's first netball associations. 

The association was an amateur affair, with Tan conducting meetings at home, doing much of the administration herself, and relying on volunteers, including her siblings. She had no powerful connections but was good at identifying volunteers' strengths. As well as being an efficient administrator Tan was a motherly figure for players, and the SWNA enjoyed a level of camaraderie which later professionally-staffed sports associations lacked.

Tan oversaw a number of measures to secure netball's growth. In addition to organising schedules and training coaches and umpires, the association bolstered the games expansion by encouraging commercial firms to sponsor teams in the business houses league, as Fraser and Neave did. 

In 1972, the Sports Promotion Board launched the inter-constituency games programme but excluded netball. Within a few years, participation in the programme was declined and Tan persuaded the board to add netball, which duly became one of the most popular games. She managed the Serangoon Gardens club, which won the first inter-constituency title. 

Tan also fought the government's removal of netball from the school calendar in 1972. In 1981 it was finally restored, ensuring that girls interested in netball had a chance to play it early.

Singaporean netball at the international level
One of the association's major achievements, she felt, was the establishment in 1964 of a national team, of which she was variously coach and manager throughout these years. The team did not find great success during this time, but still attempted to play abroad every year so as to sharpen their skills and learn from stronger teams.

Although the team could not always attend the world championships, Singapore was named host of the championships, which had never been staged in Asia before, for 1983. Tan chaired the organising committee and persuaded Fraser and Neave to contribute $40,000 towards the cost of the tournament, held at NUS Kent Ridge. Having attended other championships Tan had a notion of what did and did not work, and managed a successful event.

During the tournament it was decided to form the Asian Netball Federation (ANF), which launched in 1985. Tan hoped that a regional governing body could secure the inclusion of netball in the Southeast Asian Games, though this only happened - temporarily - after she retired. Her tenure at the ANF's helm followed closely on her presidency of the International Federation of Netball Associations, from 1979 to 1983 (she served on IFNA's council between 1967 and 1991).  

Recognition and retirement
Tan worked at all these different levels in a wholly voluntary capacity and was heartened to be acknowledged with the Pingat Bakti Masyarakat ("Public Service Medal") from President Wee Kim Wee in 1990. She also received a Certificate of Commendation from the Singapore Sports Council in 1979, and Service Awards from both the Singapore and world netball organisations in 1987.

After her eldest daughter died, Tan raised her two grandchildren and struggled to balance this with her netball work and poor health, finally standing down in 1992. Her health consequently improved and her foresight in having groomed a successor, under whom the SWNA was less of a one-woman show, ensured a smooth transition. Tan briefly remained on the executive as overseas liaison officer. 

Her retirement was commemorated by the first Daisy Tan Challenge Trophy season opener (now the Daisy Tan Carnival), which inaugurated the new netball centre in Kallang. After years of playing on temporary courts plagued by poor lighting or drainage, unsatisfactory surfaces, and killer litter from HDB blocks, the centre marked a new era that her efforts made possible. By 1992, netball was the most popular team sport for women in Singapore.

Ten days after officiating at her eponymous carnival, Tan died in Singapore on 26 January 2004.

Family
Husband: Geoffrey Tan Hoay Djin (b. 13 July 1916, Java), a district judge.
Children: Four.



Author
Duncan Sutherland



References
Aid for world netball meet [Microfilm: NL 13996]. (1983, 18 April). Singapore Monitor, p.23.

Annual report for 1979. (1980, March). Netball, 3(1), 6.
(Call no.: RSING SER 796.2095957 N)

Daisy Tan challenge trophy, The. (1992, August). Netball, 15(2), 5.
(Call no.: RSING SER 796.2095957 N) 

International Federation of Netball Associations: Report of the sixth conference 11th-24th June 1983. Singapore: Singapura Press, pp.57-58.
(Call no.: RCLOS 796.32 REP)

Interviews with prominent women in sports officialdom: Daisy Tan, president of SWNA. (April 1988). Sports, 16(4), 10.
(Call no.: RSING 796.05 S)

Low, M., & Z. Yusof. (Interviewers). (2005, December 6 - 2006, February 6). Oral history interview with Ivy Singh-Lim (CD Recording No. 2500/CF22/CF 9, 10 & 16). Singapore: National Archives of Singapore.
(Not available in NLB holdings).

Morais, J.V. (Ed.). (1967). Whos who in Malaysia (p.104). Petaling Jaya: Victory Press.
(Call no.: RCLOS 920.0595 WWM)

National day honours, 1990. (1990, August 9). Government Gazette (GN No. 2248). Singapore: Singapore National Printers.
(Call no.: RSING 959.57 SGG)

New netball centre boosts sport. (1992, July). Sports, 20(6), 18-19.
(Call no.: R SING 796.05 S)

Service awards 1987. (1987, December). Netball, 10(3), 3.
(Call no.: RSING SER 796.2095957 N)

Singapore Women's Netball Association. (1962-1985). Minutes and annual reports [Microfilm: NA 1284]. National Archives of Singapore.
(Not available in NLB holdings)

Tan, C. (July 1978). History of netball in Singapore. (1978, JUly). Netball, 1(2), 2.
(Call no.: RSING SER 796.2095957 N)

Tan, D. (1989, June). President Message [sic]. Netball, 12(2), 2.
(Call no.: RSING SER 796.2095957 N)

Womens netball pioneer dies. (2004, January 28). The Straits Times, p.8. Retrieved on January 27, 2011, from NewspaperSG..

Z. Yusof. (Interviewer). (2001, November 21 - 2002, February 5). Oral history interview with Lim Daisy Quee Hong (Cassette Recording Nos. 2580/20/01-2, 6-7, 11, 13-14, 16-19). Singapore: National Archives of Singapore.



The information in this article is valid as at 2009 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. Please contact the Library for further reading materials on the topic.