PANJIM: In April 1964, when Kenya faced India in the first of eight test hockey matches at the Bombay Provincial Hockey Association Stadium, they may not have fully grasped the pedigree of the opposition. Eight men in the Indian starting eleven that day, would go on to win Olympic gold months later in Tokyo. The scoreboard that sweltering afternoon read 2-2 at the end of full-time. Of the eleven Kenyans who took the field, were eight players who traced their roots to Goa.
Goan ancestry can be traced in players who played hockey of a high standard for the various provinces to which Goans migrated. Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Karachi, and Bombay were some of the British provinces that exhibited a vibrant hockey culture, and Goans were prominent in the representative sides of these places.
But in Goa — a state known for its football, hockey has only seen two homegrown players representing India since the state’s liberation in 1961. Both goalkeepers; Dominic Lobo went on a tour of West Germany with the Indian Men’s Junior Team and Loretta D’Souza played for the India women’s team at the Pre-Olympics, both in the 70s.
Alexander Remedios, Goa’s senior most hockey coach, has coached players in Goa for 27 years. Even today, at Peddem ground, he gets players to hone their skills. He can be called the timekeeper of the game in Goa and relishes recounting some of the most memorable anecdotes. Like the Goa – India squad, a team of home-grown locally coached boys, who lost to the Portugal National Hockey team 3-5 in Lisbon in 2009.
And against Haryana, Goa’s Januario Cardozo latched on to a quick through pass by Dattesh Priolkar and scored Goa’s lone goal in a 1-7 defeat to Haryana, taking the other team by complete surprise. And the sub-junior team which beat Maharashtra and Bengal sometime in the late 90s.
Pandurang Sakhalkar, a Guirim school boy was called for a selection camp of the Indian team for the Junior World Cup of 2016. India won the title, however, Sakhalkar didn’t make it to the team. Coach Harendra Singh said, “Never before in my coaching career have I witnessed a player from Goa attending a camp. It is an achievement for Goan hockey and should motivate players from smaller centres. The boy (Pandu) has a lot of skill, pace and agility, but he must work on his fitness and further develop his ability with modern techniques.” Sakhalkar is the first homegrown Goan hockey player called for national selection in more than two decades. That was 2014 and Sakhalkar was 17. He is now pursuing law as a college student in Goa and is a player only on tournament days.
Administrative squabbling at the Association, poor infrastructure, lack of competitions, and the ease with which the bigger and more popular football replaces hockey as a far more “convenient” sport, are often cited as the main reasons why hockey in Goa lies comatose. A few hockey lovers still get together and do what they can.
One such initiative is the Hockey Heritage Club Goa. The brainchild of Fr Dominic Alvares, it initially started out as a group of hockey lovers who wanted to revive interest in the sport by focussing on highlighting Goa’s rich hockey heritage.
They are organising their sixth tournament, on Sunday, August 19.
