By Rakesh Jha
Anything to delve into the labyrinth of Indian hockey in terms of recapturing its glory and agony in international arena is an emotional strain. It's an admixture of delight and despair, of triumphs and tragedies and of course, a saga of enduring faith even in face of persistent fiascos. Eight gold, two silver and one bronze medal in Olympic Games is a fascinating record indeed! Yet the mood in over the last three-and-a-half decades has been one of depression.
But then who to blame? Players? Coaches? Selectors? Hockey India or Indian Hockey Federation? Or the government that sees nothing wrong with the way Indian hockey is run, and the public money is wasted? Or, the Indian public who refuse to awaken despite one of their heritage is being systematically plundered by thieves and masquerades?
A beautiful game, a wonderful tradition, a tool of prestige even in colonial era, blown to oblivion!
But a closer look into the causes leading to the gradual and shameful degeneration and disintegration of our glorious past throws a lot more than just the lack of sincerity at all levels, be it the players, coaches or administrators. Indian Sports News gives an insight of some of the genuine reasons behind the decline of hockey as a game.A very costly affair: A game which is played by youngsters from the lower middle class has gone beyond their reach in terms of the cost involved. The full playing kit for a 16-member hockey team costs somewhere around Rs 60,000 to Rs 70,000 (minimum) and this is apart from having a synthetic turf field like those prevalent in Holland. With such a huge cost involved to raise a team, it's but obvious that most of the educational institutes opt for a more lucrative and less costly games
Minimum Cost: Hockey stick: Rs 350-400--at least two for a playerPlaying kit, including shin guard et al: Rs 300Hockey ball: Rs 40 to 50--at least two a playerTrack suit: Rs 450 to 500Shoes: Rs 750-- at least two a playerGoalkeeper's kit: Rs 10000 to 15000--two goal keepers in a team
Lack of uniform coaching structure: Do we really have a proper chalked out programme for coaching in India. The answer is a big no.
Let's address this problem with an example. Firstly, lets say coach "A" is training a player 'Y' for five years, during his/her formative years. Athlete 'Y' excels in the Nationals and is called to the National camp and handed over to Coach "B". The training strategies of Coach "A" and "B" are only dissimilar but even conflicting. The player, 'Y' is perplexed. The training goes on till the end of the camp. Player 'Y' now goes back to coach "A". This shuffling continues till the team is announced for a major international competition where the player 'Y' finds that he/she is selected in the team but to his/her dismay neither coach "A" or "B are accompanying, but that the federation has named coach 'Z' as a part of the team. And you expect the player to perform despite this?
India is a big country with players from different states playing different styles of hockey and it is difficult to mould them by the time they get to the national level. To make things easy at the highest level, the state coaches need to be trained first so that they are able to impart similar style of coaching. There has to be a head coach who can guide the state coaches and monitor their work. The work ethic and training methods have to be similar everywhere. That will make players across the country playing in a uniform style and that will make the job of the national coach easy in evolving a strategy. For any country to succeed a proper coaching structure is a must.
Inept officials: We don't have professionalism in Indian hockey. When Indian hockey team failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, it was termed as the darkest chapter in the history of our national game and everybody cried foul against KPS Gill & Co who had ruled the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) for nearly 15 years like their fiefdom. Luck favoured the Gill baiters and soon IHF was replaced by Hockey India. The members of the newly formed body vowed to restore the glory of our national game, which had touched its nadir in Gill's reign. Everybody thought the worst was over and hockey could only climb the ladder upwards from then onwards. But to people's dismay, the shenanigans of past do not seem to unwind its tentacles on our national game as the present incumbents at the helm of affair seem to as inept and inefficient as their predecessors. To it, the tussle between Hockey India and the Indian Hockey Federation is doing no good to the national game.
These officials are more bothered about feathering their nest rather than the well-being of the players and the game.
Frequent changes in players, captain and coach: More than 150 players and 10 coaches and as many captains in the last 10 years - it can only happen in India under the inept federation that we have had in the last few decades or so. Frequent changes in players, coaches and captaincy are hardly doing any good to the team. The players are confused about their respective roles, coaches hardly get enough time to implement their know-how and now even a die-hard hockey fan finds it difficult to remember the name of India's hockey captain. Players do not know what their roles are in the team. In-form players are thrown out often. This affect the players, coach and people associated with the team and no one can perform their job properly. There is no planning at all.
And the more astonishing is the fact that even as the people who matters (players, coach, captain) are changed frequently, there hardly has been much change in terms of the assistants and the support staff in the last 10 years or so. It must be brought to the notice of our esteemed authorities at helm that even the best of coaches get the assignment for not more than four years (leaving aside a few exceptions) for a simple reason that after assigned period even the best tends to get repetitive and has nothing new to offer.
No heroes: Unlike cricket, where the federation made efforts to pump in money and make heroes out of the players, Hockey India and earlier Indian Hockey Federation have done nothing in this regard. The controlling body has always had a demoralising effect on the players. It's not as if there were deft of talented players and stars in the team, but the conditions were so created that even the best of players--Dhanraj Pillay, Pargat Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Surjit Singh, Sanjeev Kumar, Gaganajit Singh, Prabhjot Singh to name a few--have to leave the game in humiliation. The IHF did not let them grow into a role model. And this trend started well beyond 1980s. So who should the youngsters follow? Why will the parents let their wards take on this game, which has with a gloomy future and humiliations galore, as a professional career.
No surface: The decline has been evident since the introduction of synthetic surface in 1976. It is a different ball game now but somehow we are still playing grass hockey on synthetic turf. We have not been able to exploit important attributes of the synthetic surface. There aren't enough turfs in the country to meet the demand of players. As a result we learn and practice our basics on grass but are expected to perform on synthetic turf.
No support System: The game is becoming complex with each passing day. There are frequent changes in the rules that need proper study for exploitation. There is an urgent need for a support system that can keep the team physically & mentally fit, injury free, and can provide inputs on weaknesses in own team, tactics employed by various teams, video analysis and the likes. This feed back will be of immense value to a coach who is hard pressed to produce results.
No jobs: It's not cricket or professional games like golf and hockey. Only top players manage to get jobs and that also in private companies these days. There has been no recruitment for players in the government departments for the last 10-15 years or so. What about the second rung players? Where will they go?
Negative statements of former players: People hardly get to hear good words about the game even from the former players. But then it's out of frustration as they haven't been treated well. And it definitely sends a wrong signal to the youngsters.
No sports in Indian education system: Physical education is a subject but only on papers. No ground level teaching is available in schools and colleges. It's only for marks like just as another subject. Here the concept of sport is only to win medals and that's wrong. And this is an important factor for the dearth of sportspersons, not only in hockey but all other games.
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