Hilary Fernandes
I must confess: From the first moment I saw him play, I was an instant fan (without misshaping my integrity as a journalist), someone whose admiration for the player and the man has never faded. As a young boy, I never held a hockey stick in my hand. Unlike that other mob, Dr Ribeiro Goan School, St Teresa’s Boys School in Eastleigh was not big on sport. A one-armed student Kersi Rustomji cut the grass in the exceptionally large square patch and fashioned a cricket pitch and I think cricket died after his class graduated high school. There was another block where the grass was occasionally cut to create a soccer field of sorts and was played on now and again. Dr Ribeiro’s, on the other hand, was blessed with some of the best sports girls and boys in a large variety of sports.
Hence, when I joined the Daily Nation as a Sports Reporter, I had to learn several sports in a hurry. Two men who spent many, many hours discussing, debating, and arguing various points of hockey were Hilary Fernandes and former club player & international umpire Oscar D’Souza. I remain indebted.
Hilary was born on October 22, 1937, in Nairobi, but traced his roots to Benaulim. Of his brothers, Leo was an Olympian and Kenya international. Nereus played for Kenya but migrated before he could settle into a hockey career in Kenya.
Some folks used to say in complete admiration: Hilary was probably born with a hockey stick in his hand. Yet others would swear that he was blessed with one of the finest attacking hockey brains anywhere. In his time, he was the headline behind many a Kenya, Sikh Union and Railway Goan Institute win. As a young journalist who was privileged to see him play, it was easy to see why Hilary was more often than not the headline: he was the creative genius who fashioned goals for others to score or scored himself.
Crouched low to the ground with the hockey stick seemingly attached to the ball, Hilary looked like a lioness or a cheetah on a kill and he applied the finish to his own “kill” (scoring goals) with the same finesse the two animal species are famous for. Yet, the label most suited for him was “the wizard of dribble”. He wrong-footed opposing defenders almost with every attack Kenya mounted on the opposition.
Hilary was also a crafty devil. If there was no clear shot at goal available, he would, with the greatest of calm, the innocence of a newborn babe imprinted on his face and without a hint of the guilt of wrongdoing, flick the ball onto the feet of the opposing player in front of the scoring area of the goalmouth. For intents and purposes, the not-guilty verdict was based on the “fact” that he was passing the ball to a fellow player or in the process of beating an opposing player.
The thing about Hilary was that he was great at reading the game and the opponents he played against. While mounting an attack, he was, like a great chess player, thinking three and four moves ahead of anyone else. To this, he added the deftest of flicks to the right or left, a gentle push forward to be swooped on with the speed of a bullet followed by the lethal hit into the back of the goal net with the keeper left open-mouthed and clutching at air.
The short corner brought into play his friend and captain Avtar Singh Sohal (Tari) who was often recognised as the best full-back and penalty corner converter at both Olympic and international level. He was Kenya’s open-secret weapon.
What were Hilary’s most memorable internationals? He was selected for two Olympics: 1960 Rome and 1964 Tokyo. He played for Kenya and toured South Africa (1957), India (1959), Pakistan (1962) and India (1964). Besides, he played virtually in all the home internationals.
Among Goans, he has won the most medals for winning the M R De Souza Gold Cup with Kenya Police, Railway Goan Institute and the Sikh Union making him the most decorated one of Goan hockey players anywhere. He is presently based in Toronto-Canada.
[Cyprian Fernandes was the first full-time sports journalist hired by Daily Nation in Nairobi, Kenya in 1960. In many ways, he changed the way sports was reported]
