He enjoyed a rich badminton life and memories which last an eternity, all of which may be beyond belief to anyone in the modern game.

Stories of Kew San as an influential, fascinating, compassionate and compelling character in badminton continue to inspire.

They also number more than the 87 candles Kew San had on his birthday cake on Jan 26.

“Thank you for remembering me on my birthday, I’m touched,” the grand patriarch of badminton told FMT. “Don’t forget my 1967 Thomas Cup-winning teammates who are like my family.”

At Jakarta in 1967, captain Kew San, Tan Aik Huang, Yew Cheng Hoe, Ng Boon Bee, Tan Yee Khan, Billy Ng and Omar Manaf were the superheroes of Malaysian sport in one of the greatest badminton dramas ever told.

There was no superstar or talisman in the then most powerful team in the world and in one sense that was the strength of this Malaysian side.

These were players who all had day jobs, had to take their own leave when they were chosen to represent the country and only trained for two or three weeks before the tournament.

Penang-born Kew San said it was a privilege for him to skipper the team that was all about brotherhood, discipline and intense loyalty “which cannot fail to be uplifting”.

His lust for life has not dimmed and he’s still playing the game, even if it’s just stroke play once a week with his wife of 56 years and national mixed doubles partner, Ng Mei Ling, and daughter Karen.

“I can’t stop playing badminton. It pushes me to stay healthy,” said Kew San, who like many others from his era took it as a huge honour to play for the country, became responsible for their own game and to whom money was never the reason for participation.

Cheng Hoe, 79, said the nation will probably never know the full extent of Kew San’s contributions to sport, “and there are many”.

“As a captain he cared more for the players than for himself,” said Cheng Hoe, who visited Kew San one week before his birthday at his home in Mount Erskine in Penang.

In the court, soft-spoken Kew San, often referred to affectionately as “Ah Pek” by many of his contemporaries and young players under his tutelage, was menacing.

Cheng Hoe recalled the day he and Kew San mauled Indonesian idols Rudy Hartono and Muljadi 15-0,15-0 in the final of the men’s doubles at the Penang Open badminton championships in 1966.

“It’s still a record of sorts,” said Cheng Hoe of their breathtaking and ruthless performance that only those who immersed themselves in badminton in the 1960s are aware of.

The following year, Malaysia beat their arch-rivals Indonesia 6-3, two years after the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation (1963-1965) ended.

The team were part of a moment in time when badminton became an unlikely vehicle to refresh a country still reeling from the effects of the confrontation.

The win, though, was mired in controversy following spectator trouble that forced the final to be halted when Malaysia were leading 4-3 in the best-of-nine match-ups.

Muljadi and Agus Susanto, who had the night before lost to Aik Huang and Kew San – playing in his fourth and final Thomas Cup – were all that stood between Malaysia and victory.

Boon Bee and Yee Khan who were playing the pair took the first set with ease, 15-2 but the Indonesians rallied back to even the match at a set apiece.

When fans began shining flashlights and hurling verbal abuse at the Malaysians, the tournament referee Herbert Scheele abandoned the game.

At 3am, the Malaysian team was taken from the hotel under tight security for the flight home.

That year, Kew San named his son, Thomas, who went on to represent Malaysia in para badminton.

A year later, the Malaysian team received the Thomas Cup in England after Indonesia declined to resume the clash in New Zealand.

Former Bernama chief executive officer and editor-in-chief, Yong Soo Heong, is a staunch Kew San fan, who as a Penang junior player experienced the qualities of the legend in the late 60s and early 70s.

He said Kew San was adept in the singles, doubles and mixed doubles. “He was a crafty schemer in the doubles and wasted no time in going for the kill.”

Yong said an interesting “habit” of Kew San when playing, after he had made a mistake or two, was to rub the natural string guts of his wooden and steel Dunlop racquet against his head.

“It seems the hair cream used by him helped prolong the longevity and suppleness of the rather expensive and brittle natural guts but I think it also served as a wake-up call to him to be more alert in the subsequent rallies,” he offered.

Kew San’s singles wins included the Asian Badminton Championships in 1962. He also formed a lethal men’s doubles partnership with Lim Say Hup, sweeping six international titles in 1959.

In the mixed doubles, he partnered his wife to win the 1962 Malayan Open and the 1965 Malaysian Open.

With glory came indignity that still makes Kew San bitter.

Players then had to take no pay leave for tournaments upon using up their annual leave, were denied reimbursement for no pay leave by the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) and were given meagre allowances.

In an interview with the Penang government’s organ, Buletin Mutiara, Kew San said he was also disappointed when he was left out of the national team for their first exhibition match in China despite being the national coach.

He said many top officials from the state associations instead made the historic trip, being able to foot their own expenses.

When he was awarded the title of Datuk in 2007, 40 years after the Thomas Cup triumph, Kew San had to borrow a coat from the late Khoo Kay Choo, a former state coach and player.

What bites him even harder is that he and other old stars had to apply for a pass to watch the 1992 Thomas Cup final in Kuala Lumpur – but there were no seats for them.

Seeing their predicament, former New Straits Times sportswriter, Lazarus Rokk, wrote a scathing article about how “amnesia set in faster than rigor mortis”.