Rome 1960 Olympics: When Indian Hockey Team’s Golden Run Came To A Halt

Pic :: The Newspaper clipping of " DAWN" 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1303649384014385155

This is the entire record of the U Tube that has the INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT OF THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPICS ASSOCIATION which  cannot be reproduced here but one can look into the U Tube from this records that I have put here 

U Tube :: Pakistan Scoring The Victory goal Against india In The Rome Olympics Finals 

Rome 1960 Olympics: When Indian hockey team’s golden run came to a halt

The NOT and the NEVER that should have happened to Indian Hockey just happened and when it happened it completely BROKE the BACKBONE and the resilience of the entire country.

It happened on the September 8^th, 1960 at Rome .The entire NATION could not STANDSTILL when Milkha Singh could NOT win that GOLD in the finals of the 800 metres race in the finals. Still the Indians were OUT of the BELIEF that there was that Hockey and that would make us to stand on our leg again. For India and Pakistan there is a OLD PROVERB and a OLD BELIEF in terms of the PRESTIGE that the nation helds or holds.It is-:

 A HOCKEY GOLD IN THE OLYMPICS IS AS GOOD AND AS GREAT AS WINNING MORE THAN 100 GOLDS AT THE OLYMPICS.

It was the eye that was fixed on the GOLD and it was a prestige issue for both the country . The Indian team led by Leslie Claudius was on their way to Rome for another and the SEVENTH STRAIGHT GOLD by India in Hockey. On ther other hand the pakitani team with as many as SEVEN players who played in that 1956 Olympics Finals, which had lost to India by 0-1 was there too to frustrate the dreams of the Indians.

Domination Of India In Hockey-:

India had dominated the Olympics and the World Hockey from 1928 till this time.It however had lost to Pakistan in the 1958 Asian Games on the Goal difference, ands it also beat India in the finals of the 1962 Djakarta Asian Games Final by 2-0 when Air Marshal Noor Khan was leading them. The Rome Olympics in between in 1960 gave India such a kind of a jolt that  it was really unbelievable that did ever India deserve to win as many as SIX straight Gold in the Olympics. India was sliding down in Hockey since 1956 and the Olympics at Melbourne in 1956 evidently proved that but here the Indian administrators were of the belief that  THERE ARE SOME OFF-THE-DAY in the office and that perhaps hits everybody and it perhaps did hit India too , else everything was going alright with Indian Hockey. Actually the World was improvising and India was always sleeping on and in a laid back manner thinking that they were on the right track moving rightly.

With this and with all these the 1960 Rome Olympics Squad was formed. It has and it was led by Leslie Walters Claudius who was representing India for his fourth straight Olympics with THREE STRAIGHT GOLD hanging on his neck. On one hand India had Shankar Laxman who displayed an outstanding performance in the 1956 Olympics and the GREAT job he did that day in the finals of the 1956 Olympics was that he had saved a PENALTY STROKE from Brigadier Atif to help India win that Gold .It also had the services of Raghbir Singh Bhola who was a dashing and a terrific player of that era and was a very god penalty corner conversion specialist. If these were the war horse experience that India was carrying, India was also carrying the youngsters like Pritipal Singh, Victor Joseph Peters and Joginder Singh who were young, raw but very talented to make their presence felt .The and thus started the Rome Olympic campaign for India.

This was the start- NOT the start for the Rome Olympics which it was , but the start of the SLIDING DOWN of India. The slides started from here itself and it completely took it’s steep from the 1976 games at Montreal. Sixtenn years and the Indian Hockey was DOWN and out- DUMPED for it’s count after the Montreal Olympics

Having dominated the world since 1928, the Indian hockey team fell short of another Olympic gold, losing to arch-rivals Pakistan in the final at the Rome Games.

Ever since its debut at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, the Indian hockey team had proven to be a dominant force at the global stage.

The trend was kick-started by one of the finest players to ever grace the hockey pitch, Dhyan Chand, who helped India to three consecutive gold medals at the Olympics. It was in 1928 at Amasterdam, again in 1932 at Los Angeles and thereafter in 1936 at Berlin. The Olympics were not held in 1940 and 1944. Dhyanchand had retired from active hockey after the East African tour of 1947-1948 where he scored a total of 74 goals on that tour and had helped K.D.Singh Babu to score a total of 94 on that tour. His younger brother Roop Singh had stopped playing Hockey and had given it altogether in 1945.

Post his, ie , Dhyanchand’s  retirement, it was the towering forward from Punjab -- Balbir Singh Sr -- who ensured that India’s supremacy continued.

Balbir Singh Sr led the Indian hockey team to three more gold medals at the Olympics in 1948, 1952 and 1956. But India’s domination was increasingly getting challenged.

Pakistan A Force To Reckon With-::

While the victories in 1948 and the 1952 Games came with consummate ease, India’s sixth Olympic hockey gold that came in Melbourne 1956 wasn’t a cakewalk. The 1-0 win against Pakistan in the final was hard earned and India’s neighbours showed tell tale signs that they had arrived on the world stage.

Four years later at the Rome 1960 Olympics, India were ‘ conquered ’. Pakistan relegated India to the silver medal to announce that they were a power to be reckoned with.

Prithipal, Bhola to the rescue-::

It was Pritipal Singh, the short corner specialist and Raghbir Singh Bhola who were the saviours for most of the time at Rome. The team definitely showed many a cracks and many shortcoming right from the FIRST game it played and there was a total misconnect and a misconception  and a misunderstanding that was following the Indian team and the game that India was displaying.

India was NOT the team which played that kind of an attractive-artistic Hockey which it continuously played and was playing from thw 1928 to the 1956 in the Olympics or in the places where the international Hockey game was played. The shortcoming definitely was flashed and it was totally shown like the face that is being shown and reflected in the mirror.

With Balbir Singh Sr retired, the Indian hockey team was still looking for an able replacement for the goal machine as they headed for the 1960 Olympics. Captained by the veteran half-back Leslie Claudius in his fourth Olympics, the most by an Indian then -- boasted of a quality mix of youth and experience.

On one hand, India had the likes of John Peter, Prithipal Singh and Joginder Singh who were keen to leave an impression in what was their debut Games. These three definitely were raw but had an abundance of wealth in terms of the quality and the making of very good players for the future but they had to be drilled, cut , moulded and shaped, for them to become the greats as the hockey players. On the other, Claudius along with legendary goalkeeper Shankar Laxman and Raghbir Singh Bhola brought in the much-needed experience of playing at the Olympics stage.

The Indian Team Appeared Very Unimpressive And Scratchy - ::

 The tournament ie the games started and started India for her seventh straight GOLD in the Olympics. In the group stage, India beat Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand by convincing margins to move into the quarter-finals.

The team, however, looked scratchy. India were never and not playing that quick short passes, those clever foxy body-feints and the wrist using magic that made India and looked very different as a team till then and that old magic of flowing hockey with a series of SET-SEQUENCE-SERIES kind of a pass and game was totally missing. The team was LOST ands was very confused. It appeared very cleanly and openly when India was playing that and those kind of a game in the Olympics at Rome. Though and this despite a dominant 10-0 win over Denmark and conceding just a solitary goal in the group stages.

The real thrust was not at all there for anybody to evidently see it and the dash as well combination of the flow of the game which combined the deep defense, the mid-fielders and the forwards was absolutely lacking. Most of the time the Indian half was busy at the deep defense helping the deep defense to thwart the attacks of the opponent rather than helping the forwards to score.

According to a report by The Hindu, the Indian forwards didn’t display any “ thrust or combination ” and were considered lucky to have won.

 The first of such a lack and the downfall of the standard of the game was wwitnessd against the game against the Dutch. The Indian hockey team even trailed for the first time in an Olympic match against the Netherlands.  Till the Rome Olympics, never in the history of the Olympics did India trail to any team in a hockey match in the Olympics, but the Rome Olympics saw that and India went down by a Goal against Holland in Rome at the breather but then somehow the things changed before Raghbir Singh Bhola turned the things in favour of India. Defending deep in their own half, the Dutch frustrated the Indians for long periods before turning things around as the experienced Raghbir Singh Bhola handed India the lead with seven minutes left on the clock.

It was Bhola’s incisive scoring and Prithipal Singh’s short corner conversions that masked the shortcomings as India slammed 17 goals and won all their matches in the group stages.

A different game :: India were totally playing an NON-IMAGINATIVE HOCKEY AT ROME

Rather than skillfully maneuvering their sticks in Rome, the Indians had resorted to playing the west’s hit-and-run style of hockey, which they were largely unfamiliar with.

“It was a delight in the past to watch our forwards indulge in quick short passing and skilful dribbling,” said SM Sait, the then vice president of Indian Hockey Federation.

The Vice-President Of Indian Hockey Makes His Displeasure

“ Now what we saw in Rome was a different picture altogether. Our players were trying to outdo our opponents in hard-hitting and individual thrusts,” he pointed out.

The new style wasn’t working for the Indians. And it troubled them when they ran into a determined Australia in the quarter-finals.

With the Kookaburras too deploying deep defensive tactics, the Indian hockey team once again found it hard to break the opponent’s backline and have any clear look at the Aussie goal.

With nothing to separate the teams, the match went into extra-time and once again it was the experience of Raghbir Singh Bhola that did the trick. The officer in the Indian Air Force scored from a penalty corner and carried India into the semi-final against Great Britain.

In the semis, the Indians were pushed back as the British chose to pile pressure on the champions with their incessant waves of attack. But this time, it was goalkeeper Shankar Laxman who made the difference.

The shot-stout  from Mhow ( Military Headquarters Of war ) near Indore,  in British India - now a cantonment in Indore in the state of Madhya Pradesh - was kept busy throughout the game as Stuart Mayes and John Hindle probed the Indian defence in search for a goal.

Helping Shankar Laxman hold fort -- he saved four attempts that day -- was defender Prithipal Singh who was rock solid. Udham Singh’s goal was the matchwinner and India were in another final.

Victory on the walls of Pakistan

Up against a formidable Pakistan in the final, the Indian hockey team’s task was cut out to retain the Olympic title.

Eight of the 11 players in the Pakistan side, also unbeaten in their group, had played in the final against India at the 1956 Olympics. The Pakistani had undergone a rigorous MILITARY TRAINING in terms of the fitness and a solid team training to upscale their reserves and the resource to grade it to the level of being very perfect to execute and that was evident from their display and that came out in plenty in the finals.

“ We had undergone rigorous three to four months training in the camp at Lahore where the morale of players was very high and the slogan ‘ Victory at Rome ’ was written all over the walls of our bedrooms and elsewhere which infused a fighting spirit among the players,” recalled Abdul Waheed Khan, a member of the Pakistan hockey team.

High on adrenaline, and very knitted in it’s moves and manouvre, the Pakistan enjoyed a fine outing in the final, with inside-left Naseer Bunda giving them the lead in the 11th minute. The Pakistani team in the first ten minutes of the game completely bombarded the Indian goal and took as many as FOUR STINGERS at the Indian goal which was parried away by the Indian Goalkeeper Shankar Laxman. The Indian team completely looked disarrayed and lost with confusion prevailing all over.

In such a kind of a situation and early lead gives many a kind of a tonic to the team and put’s it’s and their morale very high. Pakistan definitely had the better of everything that day. Their midfield completely choked the Indian mid-field at the centre and the Indian winger were left clueless and wondering as to what to do the next.

India did not get to see the clear picture of the Pakistani goal. However in the 69^th minute Raghbir Singh Bhola using all his nerves and the skill, completely BROKE the entire Pakistani defense in a solo run and reached the open goal of Pakistan. All he needed was to push the ball in the open goal and that would have set the right notes for India to play upon in the extra time. But to ALAS and DISMAY, Bhola went to do a REVERSE-STICK to play to the gallery and when he did it, he could not angle the ball. The misangular shot whizzed past the near post and when the final hooter was blown Pakistan had ended India’s GOLDEN-RUN of Hockey BLAZE in the Olympics and from here it was that the Indian Hockey surely started fading away. With India in disarray and unable to stitch any decent attack, Pakistan clung on that slender lead and clinched the gold for the first time in Olympic history.

I’m pasting a SHORT clipping of the U-Tube for the readers to see how Pakistan and Naseer Ahmed Bunda scored that goal against India in the finals. How lethargic was Jhamanlal Sharma to tackle Bunda in the FIRST attempt could be evidently seen in the U-Tube and the position from where Bunda had scored that goal also is seen how clear did he have the Indian goal in front of his eye to score that one. That reflects the standard of POOR physical fitness that the Indian team was carrying at rome and the lethargy that they had it with them.

I’m also putting a paper clipping of the newspaper “ DAWN ” of Pakistan,  painstakingly for India and PROUDLY for Pakistan,  stating how Pakistan won that GOLD- their FIRST ever in the Olympics at Rome to win it again in 1968 and in 1984 at Los Angeles , their LAST ever Olympic Gold in the last millennium .  

Well , that is it and That sums it all.

Regards and Thanks

Pics

Shyamal Bhattacharjee 

Mr Shyamal Bhattacharjee, the author was born at West Chirimiri Colliery at District Surguja, Chattisgarh on July 6th 1959 He received his early education at Carmel Convent School Bishrampur and later at Christ Church Boys' Higher Secondary School at Jabalpur. He later joined Hislop College at Nagpur and completed his graduation in Science and he also added a degree in    B A thereafter. He joined the HITAVADA, a leading dailies of Central India at Nagpur as a      Sub-Editor ( Sports ) but gave up to complete his MBA in 1984 He thereafter added a Diploma In Export Management. He has authored THREE books namely Notable Quotes and Noble Thought published by Pustak Mahal in 2001 Indian Cricket : Faces That Changed It  published by Manas Publications in 2009 and Essential Of Office Management published by NBCA, Kolkatta  in 2012. He has a experience of about 35 years in Marketing .

Signature Of Shyamal Bhattacharjee 

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