Kandy Hokcey president Dr. R. Maheswaran is all out to bring the game of hockey back to the former position, his main aim is to promote hockey at the grassroots level by setting up the inter club tournaments for men and women.Kandy hockey is in revival mode. Youngsters are taking it in large numbers once again. Young players can showcase their talents to get into the game as it was in the early days, in early days the game in Kandy was played at Police grounds, Asgiriya grounds, Bogambara grounds, University grounds. Today the biggest problem hockey is having is no proper place to play matches.
So, the game of hockey is to be revived again in Kandy by the present hockey promoters led by Kandy District Hockey Association president R. Maheswaran and he has a efficient secretary of the association M,. Ashroff and his able committee. They are all out to bring back hockey to its former glory. Kandy, the hill country capital, is where hockey was first played, and has a proud record of producing some of the top national hockey players and captains both men and women. Hockey in Kandy dates far back as1907, when the Indian Rajput Regiments occupied the Kandy military barracks,currently known as Police barracks.
Somewhere in 1910, a new club was formed, the Kandy Rovers. They had the Vanlangenberg brothers Hugh and Lloyd, Wicky and Percy, all top players.
In 1909, one of the Antonian students, Charlie Hamilton, who was a little ten-year-old prodigy, played as centre half. This lion hearted midget was one of those who had learnt the game the hard way in the company of the Indian stalwarts.
That year a team picked from Kandy travelled down to Colombo to play against the Municipal Council of Colombo and Bloomfield ACC. The first match was drawn, each side scoring a goal, and the hero of these two games was Charlie Hamilton, whose play had evoked repeated rounds of applause. The anti-climax was that after the teams returned from Colombo, Charlie took ill suddenly and died on November 5, 1909. The game then died a natural death.
Once again in 1926, Kandy SC with Europeans, started hockey and a tournaments were held again and in few years game faded away. At that time there was only a handful of clubs who played the game. Then again in 1930s people like P.T.Rajan, M.S. Jainudeen, V.D. Paul and J.O. Mendis started to play the game. . As the years rolled by hockey flourished in Kandy with several schools in and around Kandy taking to the game. During the World War a large number of clubs and schools including foreign teams played in Kandy. Hockey in Kandy was well organized with local tournaments in full swing. In 1944, the Kandy District Hockey Association conducted one of its finest tournaments where 14 teams participated in the league.
The post Bid to revive hockey in Kandy appeared first on DailyNews.