Junior World Cup Triumph Triggers Fresh Passion For Hockey In Uttar Pradesh

For many decades, the Indian national men’s hockey team used to draw its strength from Uttar Pradesh. Whether some of these stalwarts chose to play for their mother state or represented their employers in various competitions due to circumstances, Uttar Pradesh has been a constant source of providing rich talent.

Later, when the Uttar Pradesh government opened Sports Hostels in different cities in early 1970s, the fertile supply continued in the form of players of calibre. But, for state that gave legends like Dhyan Chand and KD Singh Babu, and stalwarts like Ali Sayeed, Mohammed Shahid, Zafar Iqbal, Syed Ali and Jagbir Singh etc. to the Indian teams till 1990s, Uttar Pradesh has now virtually lost its pride of place in Indian hockey arena.

This drying up of the supply of talented players started in early or mid-1990s. This coincided with a decisive power-shift in hockey administration at the national level, with former Punjab top cop KPS Gill becoming chief of the federation and K. Jyothikumaran secretary. Hockey nurseries like Punjab’s Sansarpur, Lucknow and Bhopal – incidentally Gill defeated Bhopal-based Gufran-e-Azam in the election to become president in 1994 – somehow stopped producing players as regularly as earlier.

In Uttar Pradesh’s case, the situation worsened partly due to the neglect of the game by officials, and partly due to the fast-changing social-economic scenario in the most populous state of the country. This happened as cricket’s popularity grew by leaps and bounds; the game offered much more money than hockey, resulting in both parents and kids getting hooked to cricket.

For these reasons and some others -- like having no clout in administration and a perceived bias against the selection of players from Uttar Pradesh – the state is hardly represented in the national team today. At the moment, only Danish Mujtaba and Amir Khan are in the senior team and just a couple of players in the junior squad. This is a far cry from Olympic gold-winning team of 1928, when the 15-member squad had five Uttar Pradesh players. Later, Dhyan Chand and KD Singh ‘Babu’ kept the state’s flag flying -- before there was no one left to carry on the legacy.

However, with Lucknow hosting the Junior World Cup successfully, in terms of great spectator response, a new ray of hope has emerged. The icing on the cake was that India clinched the trophy. It was after a long, long time that the state capital had hosted a global tournament of repute, the biggest since the now-defunct Indira Gandhi International Gold Cup, which used to be played at the same venue where the juniors won the World Cup in December -- the Dhyan Chand Hockey Stadium inside the Sports College.

Tens of thousands of spectators patronised the matches despite the freezing weather conditions and the venue being on the outskirts of the city. Spectators’ enthusiasm knew no bounds when Indian team reached the finals. Hundreds of fans failed to get inside the stadium as all tickets for the semi-finals and final were sold out like hot cakes. The craze for hockey was to be seen to be believed, even when no renowned names were in action; they were all unknown juniors.

The amazing enthusiasm to watch hockey – that too when only one player from Uttar Pradesh, Ajit Kumar Pandey, was in the Indian team -- has pleasantly surprised many hockey experts and former players.

“The tickets were priced at Rs 100, Rs 200 and Rs 400. Despite that people travelled the long distance to watch matches. The crowds grew from quarter-finals onwards and many people couldn’t buy tickets for India’s matches, especially the final, as they were sold out, leaving hundreds of them disappointed,” says Lucknow-based Olympian Sujit Kumar, who played 240 internationals.

The enthusiasm showed instant impact when KD Singh ‘Babu’ Memorial Hockey Society, which has been conducting an annual under-14 tournament for over two decades, called for entries for the 2017 edition. “In an annual state-level tournament, this year a total of 43 teams – up from previous years -- applied to compete, but we could accommodate only 27. This shows hockey in Uttar Pradesh is not finished,” Olympian Syed Ali, who is also technical secretary of the ‘Babu’ Society, told Outlook. “If camps of the national teams are organised in Lucknow, that will further encourage kids to take up hockey.”

Sujit Kumar, general secretary of the Society, says kids who played in the 2017 tournament said they would take up hockey as a career. “The change would be reflected in a year or two,” he said with hope.

Mohammed Saleem, physical education teacher at Lucknow’s Islamia Inter College, once known as the hockey nursery, has already witnessed a change. “After watching the World Cup matches, 25 students of class VIII in my school got so excited that they bought personal hockey sticks. This was unusual as hockey sticks/kit has become expensive and many students from the middle class families can't afford it,” he informs. “And when the World Cup was on, many students would skip classes to watch the matches. Some of them confessed that they got excited on watching the state governor and chief minister shaking hands with players.”

Saleem says some more impact of the Junior World Cup would be seen in the next academic session when new boys would come seeking admission. He, however, rues that the government apathy towards hockey continues. “The games fund in government schools is abysmally low. A student gets Rs.3.25 till class VIII and this amount hasn’t increased for many years despite depreciation while funds for everything else have gone up over the same period.”

Former India captain Zafar Iqbal, who learned his initial lessons on the grass field of Aligarh Muslim University before excelling on artificial turf, is optimistic. “It’s a dicey question. People had said that after Shah Rukh Khan-starrer ‘Chak De’ movie [based on a hockey coach’s perseverance for excellence] was released in 2007 that Indian hockey would now be revived, though not much happened,” Zafar told Outlook. “But now incentives like Hockey India League are there to earn decent money by playing hockey. So, the possibilities are infinite.”

Jitendra Mishra, a qualified hockey coach who recently retired as the physical education teacher of Lucknow’s Bappa Sri Narain Vocational Inter College, known for its sports achievements, says he has seen blatant bias against Uttar Pradesh players in selection matters at the school level. He says for many years he, as manager of the Uttar Pradesh team that competed in had ensured during the National School Games (NSG), has endured this bias by on-field umpires in matches and selection. He reported the issues to the School Games Federation of India (SGFI), but no action was taken.

“Many times I, as team manager, witnessed certain SGFI administrators, umpires and coaches conspire to eliminate, by hook or by crook, Uttar Pradesh teams from the under-14, under-17 and under-19 National Games. There were times when my players were beaten up for winning matches against a few particular states. On the other occasions, we were told to lose finals and semi-finals, or biased umpires cheated us blatantly. All these incidents discouraged and disillusioned boys from continuing to play hockey,” Mishra emphasises. “Also, Uttar Pradesh players have been consistently ignored by selectors. This has to change. But this World Cup craze may produce some good players. Let’s see.”

Former India hockey captain Ashok Kumar is, however, gung-ho about a turnaround in fortunes of his home state. “Youngsters would surely want to play hockey after watching the Junior World Cup, but we will have to give them some lollipops [incentives] to sustain this hobby for longer periods. We’ll have to motivate them to continue playing the game,” the son of hockey wizard Dhyan Chand told Outlook.

Like many other experts, Ashok Kumar too believes that the Uttar Pradesh government would have to be pro-active in encouraging children and it would have to chip in to subsidise the expensive hockey kits for kids who can’t afford it.

An example of the government’s neglect is the newly constructed/renovated Dhyan Chand Stadium in Jhansi, home to Ashok Kumar and Dhyan Chand. Its construction was completed and a new astro-turf was laid in November, but no one can still play there because it awaits “inauguration”, presumably by some politician.

Now, a sportsperson – former India cricketer Chetan Chauhan – having been appointed sports minister of the Uttar Pradesh, perhaps he will inaugurate the stadium and set the ball rolling. Uttar Pradesh hockey players and administrators, too, will expect a lot from Chauhan, who was born in Bareilly.

Olympian Syed Ali, the first player from the UP Sports Hostel to represent India, in early 1970s, sees lack of good coaches as another reason for the state’s downfall. “Many coaches these are not fit while others can’t explain physically the nuances of the game to kids. The Lucknow league is now played only to complete a formality,” rues the versatile left-winger who was coached by legendary KD Singh ‘Babu’.

Outside of Lucknow, there seems to be few takers in Uttar Pradesh. In Gorakhpur, for example, schools are no more interested in the sport, says 1964 Olympian Ali Sayeed.

“There are 52 or 53 intermediate schools in Gorakhpur city. But barring the Mian Saheb Islamia College, formerly known as George-Islamia College, hockey is played nowhere. There’s no infrastructure for hockey here – no astro-turf -- and so schools, which are the fountain for unearthing talent, have no facility,” rues the Gorakhpur-based Sayeed. He points out that the nearest astro-turf for Gorakhpur players is in Varanasi and distant Lucknow. “All in all, there is no career to be made in hockey now and there are no jobs for its practitioners.”

Schools and teachers in Lucknow too are not enthusiastic about hockey. This, when the city has, ironically, three prominent stadiums being named after legends – Dhyan Chand, KD Singh ‘Babu’ and Mohammed Shahid -- and has two astro-turfs.

“My father, late KD Singh ‘Babu’ used to say that talent would emerge when more and more children would play hockey. So, suppose 1,000 children take up hockey after watching the Junior World Cup, India might get at least 10 players from this lot,” says an optimistic Kunwar Dhirendra Singh, senior vice-president of the ‘Babu’ Society and a former hockey player and cricketer of repute.

“Trying to find talent has been our endeavour all these years as our Society has been organising an All-India Under-14 Prize Money Tournament for 28 successive years. But, regretfully, there’s hardly any other hockey competition for schools and colleges, apart from this tournament,” he says.

At the moment, every evening about 50 boys could be seen learning their initial lessons from Syed Ali and Sujit Kumar at a grass field near the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Stadium. The society, egged on by the undying spirit of the stylish former India captain, is swimming against the tide. After all, hope floats.