When Pakistani hockey players cheered for Indian football team

New Delhi, September 4

It may seem difficult to believe now, but former Indian football team defender Arun Ghosh vividly remembers the day when the Pakistani hockey players were among the very few people cheering for India at the ground during the 1962 Asian Games. Ghosh, one of the key members of the Indian team of the ‘Golden Era’, gets goosebumps when he remembers India’s gold medal match at the Jakarta Asian Games. India defeated South Korea 2-1 in the final to win gold. That was the last football gold India won in the Asian Games. India had also won gold in the inaugural Asian Games in 1951 in New Delhi.

The 1962 Asiad final was held on September 4, exactly 58 years ago. Ghosh said that the entire Indonesia wanted India to lose the final. Indonesians had been angered when an Indian sports official commented that the Jakarta event should be stripped of the ‘Asian Games’ tag because Indonesia had not approved visas for athletes from Israel and Taiwan.

Hostile atmosphere

“I still feel goosebumps. The stadium in Jakarta was jampacked with a partisan 1,00,000-strong Indonesian crowd cheering for Korea at the top of their voice,” Ghosh said. “But we had our support too. Any guesses? Strange as it may sound, the Pakistan hockey team cheered for us. Unbelievable, but true!”

Despite the hostile atmosphere, India took a 2-0 lead. “There was pin-drop silence when we went 2-0 up. The animosity was so high that no one came to congratulate us even after the match,” said Ghosh. — TNS, Agencies