Hockey in dire need of help

11/11/2001

DATUK R. Yogeswaran has been in love with hockey since his schooldays in
Tapah, a small town under the shadows of majestic Cameron Highlands, which
he described as the centre of the hockey nerve in the northern region in
the late 50s.
He fondly remembers the Tapah Government English School headmaster Utam
Singh and teacher M. Kandavanan as fanatics of hockey and credits the 1975
Kuala Lumpur World Cup success to people like them.
In 1975 he was assistant to head coach Ho Koh Chye, and 27 years later,
he will play the role of team manager in the 2002 Kuala Lumpur World Cup.
TIMESPORT'S JUGJET SINGH picked his brains and discovered that hockey at
the grassroots is in dire need of help.
Timesport: You were the assistant coach to the 1975 World Cup team. What
was the recipe to their success?
Yoges: It was a combination of skillful players and some element of
luck. Team manager Datuk Abdul Manaf Ibrahim, assistant manager the late
R. Neelakandan (Yogeswaran's brother), head coach Ho Koh Chye, assistant
coach Sidek Othman and I did not have any formal training on the job and
neither did we go for many overseas courses.
Koh Chye went for a coaching course in Patyala and I went for an
advanced course in coaching in Briton, that was it.
But we were a dedicated lot and the boys knew that it will be years, if
ever, when the World Cup comes back to Malaysia so they gave everyting
that they had.
We only trained full time for six months and public expectations were
not very high on the team. But after we drew the first two matches with
New Zealand and Spain and lost narrowly (2-1) to Pakistan, suddenly
everybody was talking about the team.
From the coffee shops to announcements on Malaysia Airlines flights, to
television and radios, the 1975 players became household names overnight.
To reach the semifinals, we had to beat Holland and when the match
started in Ipoh, it started raining heavily and the match was abandoned.
Holland then played Poland and, amazingly, they lost and it was good
news to Malaysia. The rest is fondly remembered in history.
The recipe for success then was a bunch of dedicated players and some
element of luck, in the form of floods.
Q: How do you rate the present batch of players training for the 2002
Kuala Lumpur World Cup?
A: We have the material to form a good side but it could be better. The
fault does not lie with the coaches or the Malaysia Hockey Federation
because in the past 10 years, very few players have been nurtured by the
school system in Malaysia.
Those days, hockey players used to be all-rounders and were involved in
two to three sports before they were discovered and took up one seriously.
I know players who were versatile in cricket, hockey and track and field.
They really beneffited because their reflexes became better and just by
teaching them some skills, they became top-notch players.
Today, most students stick to one sport from Primary School and either
have speed or skills, very few have both.
It looks like hockey `fanatics' like my headmaster in Tapah, Utam Singh
sports teacher M. Kandavanan, and a host of other names from around the
country who helped develop hockey in schools in the `50s to the '80s also
no longer exist because the schooling system is such that sports has taken
a backseat in most States.
Q: What can be done to bring back the good old days in schools?
A: First, the Education Ministry must start selecting specialists to
handle certain sports and pay them graduate salary scales eventhough they
do not have the paper qualifications. As an example, former national
skipper Sarjit Singh can be said to be holding a `masters degree' in
hockey because he has vast knowledge of the sport.
Former internationals like him should be placed in selected schools to
develop hockey because they love hockey and will go all out to produce a
champion school.
Secondly, when talent is discovered in, say remote places like
Gemencheh, Sungkai, Chemor, Trolak or any other village, we must not be
hasty in bringing them to Kuala Lumpur and ask them to train and play in
Bukit Jalil. I feel it will be better to take hockey to them insted of
bringing them here.
We also need to have more hockey bases in States, especially where
hockey used to be played on a grand scale and when two `rival' schools
play, the town field or the school field is swamped by spectators. This
used to happen in Perak, Negri Sembilan, Malacca and Johor but school
rivalry has all but died and the sport is suffering because of it.
Q: What about the current structure of hockey where state leagues and
club hockey is almost dead?
A: That is another big problem in hockey today. I can't think of any
club that specialises in hockey alone. Right now, most clubs and banks
have multiple sports programmes and none that specialises.
I propose that hockey clubs, with no other sports under their wings,
only be allowed to play in the league is they have a development programme
for the under-16, under-18 and under-21.
If clubs are unable to do that, let them die off naturally, because we
are not interested in quantity but quality.
In Germany, it is a must for a club to have all age groups under their
wings if they want to take part in the league. In malaysia, the structure
is not strong because most clubs only have one age group under their care
and junior development is neglected.
Once they have all the age groups under their care, the MHF should allow
them to host some international friendlies or even selected international
tournamants so that the members of the club will be proud to be associated
with it.
When I took the Malaysian team to Germany recently for friendlies, we
played at club premises and the support from members was an eye-opener.
Q: Do you think that hockey should be made a school subject and students
gain marks by being active in it?
A: In 1975, Argentina beat India at Seremban and everybody were shocked.
But a closer lok at Argentina revealed that selected sports were school
subjects.
Hockey is a school subject in Argentina now and they are reaping the
rewards. Their junior side were the runners-up in the Junior World Cup in
Hobart and the senior side topped the World Cup Qualifications in
Edinburgh and come highly rated for the 2002 KL World Cup.
I strongly feel the Education Ministry should make hockey a compulsory
school subject if they are serious about developing the sport at the
grassroots level. The associations will then have a larger pool of players
to choose from and will be more successful at international tournaments.
Q: If you were given a chance to make one change in the current
selection process of players, what will it be?
A: Speed. I feel that speed is what the Europeans have capatilised on to
win international matches. I will make sure that only those with speed and
the ability to endure 70 minutes of gruelling play will be selected. For
future selections at national level, speed will be made into a big
criterion.
Q: You have been following the progress of the rest of the 2002 World
Cup teams for the past year. Who do you pick to finish champions and
runners-up in the 2002 KL World Cup?
A: My biased prediction would of course be Malaysia! But if I am asked
to select the top two, with Malaysia not in the picture, I will pick
Germany and Pakistan.
(END)