Final match of the 60 th edition of the Nehru Cup hockey championship concluded at Shivaji Stadium yesterday on a very sunny day.

VIVEK SHUKLA,

SR. JOURNALIST n Columnist

When Pt. Nehru is held responsible for all the ills that country has faced before and after his demise, the final match of the 60 th edition of the Nehru Cup hockey championship concluded at Shivaji Stadium yesterday in a very sunny day. There were rumors that Rahul Gandhi would grace the final match, but he didn’t turn up. Even though the title clash was a very tame affair as the Petroleum Sports Control Board beat the Railway Sports Control Board side by 2-0, I met former Indian Airlines player, Rattan Singh thanks to Dr. Avinash Singh, a veteran journalist and a teacher.
Rattan Singh ( red turban)has been watching the Nehru Cup since 1964 itself. He has fond memories of the first match of the Nehru Cup when the star studded Northern Railways team was playing against New Delhi Heroes. NR had greats like Mohinder Lal and Harbinder Singh. The first Nehru cup was held in a sedate note as the nation was still not come to terms with the death of towering leader Pt. Nehru. 60 years later, he is dubbed as a villain of this country.

Following the death of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on May 27, 1964, a group of hockey enthusiasts in the capital met. They decided to organize an All-India Hockey Championship in Delhi in the name of the country’s first Prime Minister. This meeting included Shiv Kumar Verma, the first General Secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru Hockey Organizing Committee; Dr. Syed Hamid, the then Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University; and renowned hockey umpire Gyan Singh, among others. It was decided that the first Nehru Hockey Championship would be held in November 1964, with the final match scheduled for November 14th, Nehru’s birthday, at Shivaji Stadium. With limited time, the organizing committee worked tirelessly.
The first Nehru Championship saw participation from twenty teams, including Northern Railway, Punjab Police, and the Border Security Force. Northern Railway emerged as the winners. Kukku Walia, then a student at the Sarvodaya School, Rouse Avenue, witnessed the. He recalls Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Nehru’s sister, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, attending the final match.
Over the years, the Nehru Championship finals were also attended by Presidents S. Radhakrishnan, Dr. Zakir Husain, V.V. Giri, and Giani Zail Singh. Kukku Walia went on to play for the State Bank team in the Nehru Championship, later becoming an umpire and now the General Secretary of its organizing committee. This year’s championship featured 20 teams, including the Namdhari Hockey Club. The presence of the Namdhari team guarantees a vibrant atmosphere, with large numbers of Namdhari community elders, dressed in white turbans, churidar pyjamas, and kurtas, filling the Shivaji Stadium. They are ardent hockey supporters, a tradition dating back to the patronage of Sardar Sewa Singh Namdhari, an associate of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who brought large crowds to Shivaji Stadium for hockey matches.
During the 1970s and 1980s, teams from Kenya also participated in the Nehru Hockey Championship. These teams included Avtar Singh Sohal Tari, four-time Olympic captain for Kenya. Tari recalls that when he stepped onto the field, Delhi spectators were surprised to see a Sikh playing for the Kenyan team.
Gurbux Singh, captain of the Indian team at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, first participated in the Nehru Championship in 1966. That year, two teams from the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF), IHF Blue and IHF Red, reached the finals, with Gurbux Singh’s IHF Blue team winning. He fondly remembers the unique atmosphere of playing at Shivaji Stadium, where the proximity of the audience created an intense and engaging experience. Even now the situation is the same as crowd keep on guiding their players from the gallery.

For goalkeeper Ashok Diwan, the 1974 Nehru Championship was memorable. His outstanding performance with the Northern Railway team led to his selection for the Indian team at the 1975 World Cup Hockey Championship in Kuala Lumpur, where his performance contributed to India’s victory.