The Anglo Indian and the Punjab Loggerhead in Hockey and it’s Saga :: " DISGRUNTLED- DISINTEGRATION "




Pic :: The Real State Of The Actual Position Of The Anglo-India's In Hockey at India at present 

The Anglo Indian and the Punjab Loggerhead in Hockey and it’s Saga :: " DISGRUNTLED- DISINTEGRATION "  

Hockey in India as they say salvaged it’s prestige in  1948 when the Indian team won it’s fourth consecutive Oympic title in 1948 when it defeated the Great Britain Hockey team . That VICTORY was due to some belleigerent and very diabolical unimaginative wing play by K.D.Singh Babu who played along with balbir Singh Senior upfront and the two Anglo-Indian , ONE of them being Leslie Claudius who played at the CENTRE-HALF position in that tourney.

Many speak a LOT about Balbir Singh Senior and every credit his attributed to him when it boils down to Infdian Hockey from 1948 to 1956. The kind of praises that is lavished upon him , it becomes very hard to digest some of the facts which the world and this country keeps on heaping on him.

Not taking away any credit from this GREAT HOCKEY PLAYER, I would request the readrs world over to read this article of  mine which I have narrated here in this blog page with this title-:

Reality Bites :: Indian Hockey – 1932 versus 1952 Media plays it's game to TARNISH the image of the Great Balbir Singh Sr

The above article is placed on my blog page here and is inscribed on May 31st  2020 and one can read all about it .That write up by me would really describe how the media and the press of that era completely would put the Punjabis over the NINTH SKY when it came to Hockey .This in a way started shifting the attention to the Punjabis and the Sardars playing Hockey here at India and even if they were of a mediocre standard but if they did hail from any part of Punjab and especially SANSARPUR , it would be taken for granted that he the Punjabi or the Sardarji is a class material in Hockey just like the Bombayite’s were considered  as some kind of a world class cricketer if they came out of the Bombay cricket and it’s legion.

I write some saga about the contribution of the Anglo-Indians and their rich contribution to the game of Hockey . It is very IMPERATIVE to make the people learn and UNDERSTAND the contribution that these Anglo-Indian made and provided to the game of Hockey at India.

Hockey: India’s national game  and the saga of the Anglo-Indians

At the time of writing, the saga of Anglo-Indian hockey prevails in India and beyond. Hockey was introduced at the 1896 Olympics and, 20 years later, Indian players, most of them drawn from clubs inseparable from the Railways, the Telegraphs, Customs or Port services, were highly visible at the international level.

 A Bengal Hockey Club appeared as early as 1908, while there at Punjab’s part of Pakistan it were the two cities ofcourse Lahore to be precise and  Karachi’s Sind Hockey Association, established in 1920, did much to systematize Indian hockey. The game’s modest needs in terms of equipment and facilities rendered it a sport suited to South Asia and, as was the case elsewhere in the British Empire, hockey was regarded as a healthy outlet for both sexes.

A Britishe Ofiicer posted in the British Indian Army , Mr Eric Stracey’s memoir of Bangalore in the 1920s and 1930s refers to the sports in which he and most other Anglo-Indians were involved. Cricket was played in the summer and soccer belonged to the monsoon season, but hockey had year-round appeal and, as Stracey wrote, which I REPRODUCE here after s thorough study of the same, “  it was hockey that his community made especially its own.10 out of the 11 Anglo-Indian then at that times , felt it so privileged to play Hockey that if any Anglo-Indian, at that point of a time, incase if his daughter were or was to be married, he would put up a QUESTION- DOES YOUR SON PLAYS HOCKEY, for that ws Hockey so important to the Anglo-Indians and their contribution to Indian Hockey.



Pics :: " DECAY " Of The History Of The Anglo-Indians Relating Their Contribution In Hockey 

It may be recalled here that in 1948 the Indian Hockey team that won the Gold in the Olympics at London had  AS MANY AS NINE PLAYERS PLAYING AND REPRESENTING INDIA IN THE HOCKEY.  That Gentleman Mr Stracey goes on to add and he might have added that it was the Anglo-Indian fondness for hockey that helped to bring Anglo-Indians into friendly contact with other Indians. Stracey recalled the Bangalore Anglo-Indian, basically who considered them as Indian by then,  Indians and the Sappers & Miners as regular rivals of the best Anglo-Indian elevens.

As many as 11 Indian hockey gained impetus after the 1920s due to its promotion within the Indian Army and the coordinating work of an Indian Hockey Association,  ie the I.H.F established in 1925. Talented players often emerged from the service leagues, many of which were lowly or obscure collectivities of railwaymen and others 226 A MOST REMARKABLE COMMUNITY familiar with sometimes makeshift. The encouragement of team sports by the various services rendered hockey a usual aspect of the Indian whirl.

Bengal saw a voluptus rise and a sweet liking to the game of Hockey and there were as many as FOUR beautiful Hockey play field at Bengal and the standard was such that it could have  challenged any great Hockey ground of the World. In the meantime the Beighton Cup started at Bengal and  IT WAS THE BLUE RIBAND OF INDIAN HOCKEY. In Bengal, the Calcutta Hockey League’s annual tournament was won by Anglo-Indian teams 17 times between 1905 and 1924.  For many years, Calcutta Customs was considered unbeatable, with other outstanding players belonging to the Calcutta Port Commission or the Bengal–Nagpur Railway.

If the South and the East Of India were showing their true colurs with these Anglo-Indians surging so great and so venomously in Hockey to kill their opponent in and on the field the Western part of the country and especially  in Bombay, the Aga Khan Tournament was won by Anglo-Indian elevens, year after year.

Christ Church Boys” Higher Secondary School, Jabalpur THROWS up FOUR players to represent India

When Bombay Customs played Christ Church School’s Old Boys of Jabalpur in 1926, it was and it use to be the ANGLO-INDIAN show down between the two very famous drilled Anglo-Indian teams, the Jabalpurians though being the School were trained like the MILITARY and their output revealed actually WHAT WERE THEY IN REALITY.

The two – basically the and  what we would call it then, the Anglo BEST of the Anglo-Indian showdown between players having many times faced one another, with victory alternating between them. The All-India Scindia Gold Cup  , held by the Gharana’s of the Scindia which threw many a good players from that region of  Madhya Bharat then, and most of them Muslim also saw the dominbation of the Anglo-Indian playing this game and winning that trophy for many a times though the Muslims that were emerging from the Bhopal area playing this game were ARDENT- ADULATED eye sparkling gems of the Indian Hockey rising form the erstwhile Nawab dominated arena and area of Hockey and with that many from the city of Holkar which later became Indore also started throwing many a faces of Hockey though the Anglo-Indians were the one’s who dominated this game. The  All India Scindia Gold Cup was  also won repeatedly by elevens chosen from fewer than 50 of the Ajmer Railway workshop’s apprentices. In 1926, an Indian Army team toured New Zealand,  and in that one SAW the GLITZ of the magic of Dhyanchand wjo toured with that team. Well to say , and  to add separately, on the eve of their departure, that team was beaten soundly by an Anglo-Indian team of the Northwestern Military.

The Golden era Of Indian Hockey :: 1928-1956 and the Anglo-Indian had over 80% to contribute

A Golden Era of Indian hockey is found in the interval 1928–1956 when India won six consecutive gold medals in Olympic competition (the country again won gold in Tokyo in 1964, and Moscow in 1980). At the 1928 Olympics, eight of eleven male players representing India were Anglo-Indians.

 The late Anglo-Indian lawyer and parliamentarian Frank Anthony wrote that his community might easily have summoned at least six more teams of equally high standard. The 1932 Olympic team included seven Anglo-Indians (Allen, Tapsell, Hammond, Brown, Penniger, Carr and Sullivan),  of which there were FOUR that had passed out from the CHRIST CHURCH BOYS’ HIGHER SECONDARY SCHOOL, Jabalpur, while R.J. Allen had played on the 1928 team and was regarded as the world’s best goalkeeper between the period of 1928 to 1956 and that record was later broken and taken away by SHANKAR LAXMAN who represented India in THREE Olympics between 1956 to 1964 and had led the Indian team for it’s FIRST ever ASIAN GAMES GOLD in 1966 at Bangkok.  

Olympic Berlin 1936 :: Dhyanchand mesmerizes and the Anglo-Indians COMPRISES the Indian Hockey team.

To further add and to make the article a bit more interesting,  at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Anglo-Indian history was to present one of its many dramatically colourful turns. There were six Anglo-Indians on the gold-winning Indian team (Allen, Tapsell, Cullen, Emmet, Michie and Gallibardy).

 In the final, played amid Nazi Germanys attachment to ideals of racial purity and athleticism, a most, I would call it ,  ‘ miscegenated ’ Indian team defeated none other than Germany, 8–1. Most of the 1928 and 1932 players hailed from northern and central India. Several of the day’s principal hockey centres were Bhopal and its environs Gwalior, Jhansi and Indore, as well as Allahabad, Aligarh, Lucknow and Delhi. Early inter-zonal competitions had begun in Punjab, Bengal, Gwalior and Delhi, but also in Bombay and Madras. The international players of the 1930s often knew one another well. Hammond, Penniger, the Carr brothers and Allen were students of Oak Grove, after passing out from CHRIST CHURCH BOYS’ HIGHER SECONDAR SCHOOL, Jabalpur,  and Cullen and Emmett attended St. George’s College, both facilities of Mussoorie, UP of which Cullen was a student of C.C.B.H.S.S. and his Father was a Employee of that School and a HOUSE still stand in his name at the School which is known as CULLEN HOUSE .

International Following and National Colours “ BLOOM ” for some Anglo-Indians.

Some players obtained international followings. Broome Penniger, for example, was known outside of India as the world’s best centre. Leslie Hammond and Dickie and Laurie Carr were famous arrivals in Australia, where they later emigrated. It may be added that the Senior Hammond played alongside Dhyanchand in the 1932 Olympics and their son Walter and Ashok played against each other for the FIRST time at Munich Olympics in 1972 where India beat Australia by 3-1.

The “ CESSATION ” of this game known as Hockey and the “ DILUTION ” of the Anglo-Indians

 

 The cessation of sport through World War II and the spectre of India’s independence in 1947 produced a perfect background for another fourish of Anglo-Indian history, and the VOUCH that the Christians would do for same and for the game, and as  the a as the official of the British departed leaving an Anglo-Indian popunation firmly, and grimly, designated as citizens of India after some 150 years of discrepancy. In 1948, India’s hockey team (including ‘the Wizard’ Dhyan Singh,  Roop Singh, Patrick Jansen, Leslie Clausius, Lawrie Fernandes, Gerry Glacken, Leo Pinto, MEGAN S. MILLS , Reginald Rodrigues and Maxie Vas) as  many as  proceeded to become the World Champions in London.

The 1952 Olympic team also won easily, and is remembered as a well-balanced eleven. K.D.Singh Babu , Balbir Singh Senior, R.S.Bhola if were the NON- ANGLO INDIANS to garner the cynosure of all the eyes , it was Leslie Claudius who was the CENTRE of all the FULCRUM to add to the BONES and the STRENGHTH of that Indian team and of course it was K.D.Singh Babu who had won the HELMS AWARD for the Helsinki Olympics .

 The same coordination was observed at the 1956 Melbourne games, though K.D.Singh Babu was no more a India Hockey player anymore as he had given up the game,  and again at Rome in 1960, with top-level Indian hockey continuing to be led by Anglo-Indian players and coaches. Anglo-Indian emigration was producing interesting developments abroad. At the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, India defeated Australia by a single goal in the quarter-final, in which Indian team captain Leslie Claudius faced Australian captain and fellow Anglo-Indian Kevin Carton. Indeed, Western Australian hockey, as promoted by Anglo-Indian immigrants, was to become a national institution . Fred Browne became Australia’s first Olympic hockey coach in the 1950s, while Eric Pearce represented Australia at the 1968 Olympic Games in the company of his brothers, Gordon and Julian. Of a total of  five, Pearce brothers, each played for Australia at least three times!.Mind you they all had their HOCKEY ROOT here at India.  This Anglo-Indian family’s sporting tradition continued when Pearce’s daughter, Colleen, played on the Australian women’s hockey team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Pakistan Also Gains From The Anglo-Indians in Hockey

 Mention must also be made of the Anglo-Indians who remained in what became Pakistan in 1947, as India lost P.P. Fernandes and several other hockey players to her sister country. Indeed, the defeat sustained by India at the 1960 Olympic Games was to Pakistan. Current hockey followers in Pakistan continue to refer to the Anglo-Indians in a sport still concentrated in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpandi and Peshawar—places of once-large Anglo-Indian populations and the usual cultural concoction of schools, clubs, service and armed forces teams that generated most competitive hockey.

 The 1970s altered Indian and international hockey, mainly due to the advent of astroturf as encountered at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Whereas Indian players excelled in dribbling, as perfected on hard or uneven playing surfaces, the new artificial, surfaces more damp and regular texture demands less holding of the ball and more aggressively physical play. International rules also produced a new system of penalties dictating other adjustments. In India at the present time, controversy is associated with the coaching career of Cedric D’Souza, a former goalkeeper and Air India employee, who was India’s national coach before a disappointing performance at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics (although his team had earlier performed well at the 1994 World Cup in Sydney, and after Atlanta had won gold at the 1998 Asian Games).

Cedric  D’Souza argues that Indian hockey requires superior funding and organization if teams are to improve in a sporting climate that is now more attuned to professional cricket. Since 1998, D’Souza has headed the hockey academy at Jullundur and staged hockey camps about the country. He was a Technical Director, of the Indian Hockey Association and had a central ambition of rebuilding Indian hockey from the grassroots level, an approach shared by the Indian Hockey Federation’s Executive Director, Robert  ‘Panther ’ Lawrence  , a former cricketer and a public relations employee of Tata International.

Leslie Claudius:: Best and the VERY-BEST of them all …….. BEST BENGALI SPORTSMAN OF THE CENTURY….

 The Anglo-Indian love affair with field hockey possesses an extensive lore of A MOST REMARKABLE COMMUNITY personalities and legendary performances. Perhaps most famous is Leslie Claudius who, in 2000, was honoured by the Ballygunge Institute and the West Bengal Sports Minister as the ……‘ Best Bengali athlete of the century ’. Claudius has THREE-OLYMPIC-GOLD and ONE “ SILVER ” medals to his credit.

Awarded the Padma Shri in 1971, Claudius is a native of Bilaspur, Madhya Pradesh, but has lived for many years in Calcutta.His nephew Wilmon Charles Hickens was my batch mate at the C.C.B.H.S.S. at Jabalpur.  In 1956 and 1960, Claudius was the halfback star of the Indian Olympic team.

 Claudius’s first love had actually been football. Dickie Carr of the 1936 Olympic team discovered him in 1946 when he happened to attend a match between the Bengal–Nagpur Railway’s A and B teams at Kharagpur, then the main centre for Railway Sports.  Carr asked Claudius to substitute for a missing player in a Hockey match that the Railway unit’s were playing, and the transformation from Football to Hockey was such, that ,  and, within a fortnight, he was a member of the First eleven of the Railway Hockey team and immediately from then to the INDIAN HOCKEY TEAM. . He played for Port Commissioners and, in 1949, joined Calcutta Customs, carrying on until 1965 when he retired from top-level hockey. Claudius’ son Bobby  whose actual name was ROBERT CLAUDIUS represented India in the 1978 Asian Games Hockey at Bangkok winning a SILVER lest in 1978 just after that games, he lost his life when he was only 19 years of age in a scooter accident at Kolkatta and he also had shown similar ability of his Father, denying a Mohun Bagan offer to play Football for them and choosing Hockey, and had been selected for the national team at the time of his tragically premature death.

CONCLUSION - :: 

When a different range of viewpoints is examined, we are left with the reverence shown by millions of very ordinary Indian citizens for this athlete or team as an everyday, endlessly manifested detail of Indian life. Let it be said that the lads gathered round a bazaar television screen of an afternoon are not entranced by classical music, the national budget, nor the utterances of Nobel laureates.

 Sports, including the masses’ love of " krickhet ",  or " KIRKET " offer much compensation to Indian lives that are far more challenging that those of the intellectual ethnic group. Leander-bhai or Claudius-Uncle remain of far greater importance to Calcutta’s more numerous citizens than the same region’s many academic ‘ batsmen ’

 A MOST REMARKABLE COMMUNITY Western-derived sports also remain the foremost leisure pursuits of other Indians engaged in both public and private sector organizations. A visit today to an Anglo-Indian school in any part of India will present immediate evidence of sport. Boys and girls of every community engage in games as part of an educational experience familiar to what must now be lakhs of people in India, or of Indian origin throughout the world.

 Persons who grew up in the new Republic of India were certainly aware of their country’s ONE  showing at several Olympic games and, in days when much else seemed uncertain and as a genuinely All-India presence, Anglo-Indian athletes did their bit towards a pan-Indian unity of spirit through their various successes in India and abroad

Fall Back-:: Only A MOVE TO SURGE AHEAD. 

Fall back to 1896 when the MODRN OLYMPICS had started. The ONLY ONE then and the FIRST OVERALL was a lady Madam Mary who participated for India in that Olympics with a BRITISH UNION JACK FLAG in her hand. Unfortunately I do not recollect her surname .

Come back to Olympic Paris in 1900, it was NORNAM PRITCHARD who WON India TWO SILVER MEDAL and then from 1928 India started winning the GOLD ofcourse COURTESY " HOCKEY " but it was Norman who showed us the way to win the Olympic medals in the meet .

HIGH TIME THAT THE RAJIV GANDHI KHEL RATNA AWARD IS RECHRISTENED AS, I WOULD REQUEST THE G.O.I TO RECHRISTEN IT AS.... “ NORMAN PRITCHARD ” KHEL RATNA AWARD.

For he was the FIRST Anglo Indian to win TWO SILVER MEDAL for India in the 1900 Paris Olympics and showed as well as paved the way for the Indians about HOW TO WIN AN OLYMPIC MEDAL .... and mind you HE WAS AN ANGLO-INDIAN of course a CHRISTIAN. .

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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