FORMER Malaysian hockey chief coach Paul Revington could not cope with stress, which led to a temporarily worn-out and damaged mind, leaving him no choice but to resign in a haste.
A visibly shaken Revinton read from a prepared statement, which he hoped would clear the air on why he quit the national team for the second time in seven months.
“Although I had tried extremely hard to fight the onset of a stress-related illness since June 2013, I am still not functioning to my maximum capacity and it has been affecting the quality of my day-to-day work,” was his opening statement at a press conference yesterday.
And it was in June 15 last year that he had thrown in the towel for the first time, when he could no longer tolerate outside interfearance, allegedly from Junior World Cup coach K. Dharmaraj and 1Mas Project Director Lim Chiow Chuan.
A threatening e-mail to Revington was the reason back then for the South African to resign, and from his statement, it looks like he never recovered from that episode even though he helped Malaysia qualify for the World Cup by finishing fifth in the World League Semi-finals in Johor Baru.
The Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) have accepted Revington’s resignation and elevated juniors coach Dharmaraj to fill his shoes.
And in a surprising move, MHC demoted Revington’s assistant Arul Selvaraj to the juniors ranks.
Revingtion, who coached South Africa then Ireland and finally Malaysia also said: “A broken or damaged mind is no different to a broken bone -- it needs time to heal. I have been working at the top end of high performance hockey for over 12 years and have been pushing myself and the teams I have been coaching to improve quickly from day one in each of these years.
“And I often faced with continual and at times expected environmental challenges. These 12 years have unfortunately led to a temporarily worn-out and damaged mind.”
Arul, a former national player, and assistant to Revington in South Africa, Ireland and was a package deal when he came back to Malaysia -- did not see his new position as the juniors coach as a demotion.
“I have a contract (until 2016) and a job to do, and if the MHC feel that I am best suited to be the juniors coach, I will train the juniors and I don’t see it as a demotion,” said Arul.
And Dharmaraj, who coached the juniors to fourth place in the New Delhi World Cup said: “The situation was such that either I be retained as the juniors coach, and Arul promoted to the seniors chief coach position or the other way around.
“This is because if the management had decided to make Arul my assistant at the senior level, it would be difficult as he was next in line.
“So its best that both of us handle different levels.”
When asked if he was willing to leave his Malaysia Hockey League coaching job with KL Hockey Club if his contract does not allow him to wear two hats: “If that’s what is stipulated in my contract, I will honour it.”
