Panchkula Afternoon 3.20pm, Monday, 10th March , 2008 To a man of my old age 74 yrs. , this is shocking that Indian Hockey has come to such a pass! In past decade ,too ,despite bad turns and twists , we had accomplished players like Harbinder Singh , Tirkey, Pillai , and Ashok Kumar though not equal to legends like Dhyan Chand or RoopSingh still could be equal to second generation stalwarts and Olympians like Babbu, Kishan Lal , Balbir Singh , Kaushik or Jammanlal ,Charanjit or J. Iqbal..Now ,the nadir of Hockey is on our horizon , as upstart teams of China , Bylorussia or Spain and and even non-descript England shall vy with Koreans and Pakistanis for Medals in Beijing while we shall be put outside the stadium. The causes ,are aplenty , the nature of hockey has become robust and dribbling and short passwork no longer can tackle the needs of superb body fitness of Germans , and swift conversion of Penalty corners or effective free-hits.our wingers and half line players too get fagged out on astro turfs in about 40 minutes nearly about two thirds of full time. Add to this , the craze for Cricket leaves little sense of dedication in schools and small -town for sturdy manly fitness amongst our youth for stamina to last full 75-80 minutes quick hard demands of fast Hockey of our times!The game has to be worked out from intial stages in Schools and village fields , if we are not to stay dumped for decades from competitive hockey as the global sport ...D. Goel
