The name change was made by the late Harun Idris, then supremo of national and Selangor football. Harun changed Lim’s middle name from “Fong” to “Fung” because it sounded funky.

It was the era of funk music and Harun told him the name Fung Kee sounded better.

Lim said: “He referred to me as Fung Kee to the media and the name stuck. However, when I played professional football in Hong Kong, I was known by my real name.”

Capped 40 times for Malaysia, Lim was in a reflective mood in an interview with FMT during a recent visit to Malaysia from Hong Kong where he has lived for 49 years.

As a lively goalkeeper, the name Fung Kee kind of suited him.

Dressed in all black – “because that was all I got” – and playing without gloves, he grooved between the sticks just like funk music that possesses a distinctive sense of rhythmic movement.

His name change bears some resemblance to that of Malaysia’s famous football captain Soh Chin Ann who for long was known as Chin Aun.

According to Chin Ann, when he pointed out the correct spelling of his name, his media friends shrugged it off. “Perhaps they thought Ann was girlish.”

It is approaching 51 years since Lim represented Malaysia at the 1972 Munich Olympics as a 20-year-old second-choice keeper to Wong Kam Fook.

He made the national team after replacing Chinna Karuppan as main shot-stopper of a star-studded Selangor team in 1970.

Lim was known for his courage, agility, quick reflexes, vision and unorthodox saves since his exploits as a teenager playing in the Burnley Cup.

It was his hard graft that produced a horror collision in a match between Malaysia and India at the Merdeka Tournament in 1973.

India’s speedy right winger N Ulaganathan suffered a shinbone injury in the clash with a player inside the Malaysian penalty area and skipper M Chandran was blamed for the tackle.

Later that night, Indian fans, upset over the injury to Ulaganathan and India’s 4-0 quarter-final loss to Malaysia, stoned his house in Puchong.

In revealing the truth about Ulaganathan’s injury, Lim said it was him who crashed into the Indian player and not Chandran.

Lim recalled the unfortunate incident had occurred after Ulaganathan sped past Chandran and worked his way into the penalty box.

Ulaganathan clattered into the onrushing Lim, who sprung forward with both feet forward, and in the air, to grab the ball.

Both the players collided and Chandran tumbled over both of them. Ulaganathan was ruled out of international football for six months.

Chandran knew it was Lim who caused the injury but never disclosed it to the press. Lim said Chandran’s silence could be attributed to a captain who cared about his players on and off the pitch.

It was not the first time Lim had taken out a player. In the days when goalkeepers launched stunning forward somersaults in the air, his leg accidentally struck the jaw of a Thailand striker.

In the Malaysia Cup, he broke the collarbone of a Terengganu player, but despite his aggression and assertion in the 18-yard box, he had never been red-carded.

Lim said he was only once carried off the field when he got a boot to his face in a one-to-one duel, five minutes into a match between Malaysia and Kunishige Kamamoto-powered Japan. He was out for two weeks.

Though an icon of Malaysian goalkeeping, many would not have heard of Lim, who played barehanded at a time when gloves were not a part of goalkeeper’s everyday equipment.

The first time he wore gloves was at the Munich Olympics when Adidas supplied the team kit.

He continued playing with bare hands even after he turned professional with Seiko of Hong Kong in 1974, and when he kept goal for Malaysia that year when the national team, then defending champions, beat South Korea 1-0 to win the Merdeka tournament.

In Munich, Lim played one group game, substituting for Kam Fook on 27 minutes against Morocco when Malaysia were down by four goals. He conceded two more goals to give the north Africans a 6-0 win.

Many Malaysian footballers have gone abroad to play professional but few have succeeded.

Those who fared well overseas were Lim, Kam Fook and Malaysia’s greatest keeper Chow Chee Keong, midfielders Wong Choon Wah and Yip Chee Keong ( all in Hong Kong), Dali Omar (Azzurri of Perth, Australia, now Perth Glory) and Lim Teong Kim in the Bundesliga (Hertha Berlin, Germany).

Lim said Chin Ann, who was hugely popular in Hong Kong, played “three or four times for Seiko but he did not like the lifestyle in Hong Kong and said Melaka was the best place for him.”

He said he received RM3 and RM5 as allowance for state and national training respectively – which may be unbelievable to anyone in the modern game – before he left for Hong Kong.

At the start of his career as the only Malaysian among five foreign professional players for Seiko, he was paid HK$6,000 (about RM3,000) and given a commitment of a full-time job after his playing career.

During his seven years with Seiko, the club won numerous domestic titles, including the big money Viceroy Cup sponsored by a cigarette company.

Lim was later manager of Happy Valley FC and Rangers FC before getting involved in the development of football in Hong Kong from 2000 until his retirement in 2015.

He agreed that to be a supporter of the Malaysian football team over recent years was to be familiar with sorrow and acquainted with grief.

Many have said Malaysian football was struggling today largely due to the low-quality international matches, limited games, lack of commitment and absence of strong temperament to withstand any test.

Asked what the challenge was for current Malaysian footballers to attract the attention of foreign clubs, he said: “They are not tactically and mentally good enough to play abroad. They do not appear strong enough to cope with the football culture, life and food overseas.”

Lim, who was inducted into the Olympic Council of Malaysia’s Hall of Fame together with the members of the Munich Olympics team in 2004, has grown heartily sick of sporting heroes being ignored.

He said he could not watch Malaysia’s recent AFF Cup matches at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil because lifetime passes for ex-internationals had been replaced with annual renewal.

Asked if he was a member of the Malaysia Olympians Association, he said: “No. I have heard of them but nobody has told me what I should do.”

Lim may be turning 71 on February 22 but he does not look his age.

He plays low-tier hockey with Shaheen Sports Club, jogs often between four and five kilometres and does some mountain hiking.

Now if someone could just uncover footage of the triple penalty box crash that left Ulaganathan on a stretcher.