This 57-year-old hockey player is still pursuing his love for the sport

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 5

Iqbal Singh Sandhu is a renowned name in Indian hockey from the days of yore. Having witnessed a remarkable glory of Indian hockey during the ’80s and ’90s, Sandhu only aspires to relive those long gone moments.

After taking retirement from his services this year in the month of May, he is at present pursuing his love for hockey. With the help of like-minded people, he is providing free training to budding hockey players at Surjit Singh Hockey Stadium.

The 58-year-old former hockey player started playing the sport when he was 14. His introduction to the national sport was a mere accident, but one can consider it to be a fortunate one.

“When I was in Class X at Layallpur Khalsa School, there was an inter-school level match. Teams from girls’ school, who had already carved a niche for themselves were participating in the match. Players from our school didn’t want to lose. However, our goalkeeper was missing. My friends in the team and the coach insisted me to slip in. To my surprise, in fact everyone’s, the opposite team couldn’t secure even a single goal. Since then, there was no looking back and I remained associated with hockey. Our coach trained me and sharpened my skills,” said Iqbal.

In the nearly 10 years of his active sports career, he has played several district, state, national and international championships. He was also among the probable players for 1985 Junior Hockey World Championship and got trained in the World Cup camp.

Later, when he was 24, he was appointed as Naib Tehsildar in Ludhiana. In his area of eminence (administration and governance), he was also awarded silver medal and certificate of appreciation for outstanding work during the Census 1991 by the then President of India. After serving for 32 years, he retired as Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) Ludhiana.

For the past 37 years, he is associated with Surjit Hockey Stadium here and is serving as its secretary for the last 20 years. He also participated in the International Youth Festival, 2014, in Pakistan as the manager of Punjab Hockey Team that won the gold medal.

A resident of Guru Govind Singh Nagar, Sandhu, along with fellow hockey players Ravinder Singh, Davinder Singh and other coaches of sports department, reaches the stadium early in the morning to train budding players. The camp that had only five players in the beginning, has now over 100 children. Apart from free training, hockey sticks and balls, nutrition is also provided to the Under-14 and Under-19 players.

Apart from children from Jalandhar, a large number of players are from Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur, who reach the stadium at 6.30 am. He wants parents to send their wards to the training camp, as it is completely free.

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