PANAJI
Don Bosco Oratory Sports & Cultural Youth Club situated in the heart of the Capital City has emerged as a hub of sporting activity over a period of time. From 6 am until 10 pm the venue is an epicentre for a variety of sports and other activities. Fr Ralin De Souza, Director at DBO, Panaji in a freewheeling chat with Basil Sylvester Pinto talks on how the centre grew from a nondescript playing ground to what it stands for today.
q: When did DBO start?
Fr Ralin: It started on April 5, 1946, to serve as a four-fold purpose - playground, school, home and church. It created a platform for anyone to recreate. While every Don Bosco institution in the country had an Oratory, the one in Panaji was the first to start an Oratory for playing games first. The children gathered together to start with sports, before moving to the educational aspect. Nowadays, besides the more professional approach to learning the games, there is a small prayer before the start of any game.
q: Tell us about the sports culture at DBO over the years.
Fr Ralin: Back in the 1970s, 80s football was the main game. The likes of Armando Colaco, Armando Duarte honed their skills here. Dempo SC apart from DBO used the facilities available here. With Fr Eddie D'Souza in-charge of the Oratory from 1974-78, football was a prime focus. DBO even had a First Division team participating in the GFA tourneys. But with Fr Benedict Furtado taking over as the Director of the DBO from 1978-82, football slacked. Fr Furtado incidentally had his main interest in the hoop sport. As a matter of fact, he was the first President of the State Basketball Association which had Fr Joseph Carvalho, Principal, Loyola High School, Margao and Jagdish Surlakar, Principal, People's High school, Panaji in the committee as well. But with Zito Godinho, who was the goalkeeper of the yesteryeas, DBO team took to coaching the school football team in early 80s. His efforts yielded fruition to the extent that the school became not only the first school from Goa to reach the National level in Subroto Mukherjee Cup but made it to as far as the semis stage. Though DBO initially prided itself in football, other sports began to come to the fore. From 1978-80, the DBO basketball team constituted most of the State Teams' Men's and Women's players. While among the men, saw hoopsters like Luis Fernandes and Shekhar Jain, the women's game featured names such as Juliana Colaco, Pratima Dhond, Ameeta Mascarenhas and Suzette Aranjo. In the late 90s prominently men's basketballers from the DBO included Sandeep Balekar, Filipe Alvares, Charles D'Souza, Velly D'Souza and Atmaram Desai.
q: What are the plans chalked out for future?
Fr Ralin: We have plans to revamp the facility. We want to get professional facilities to use, especially outdoors. We plan to include a football turf, a small track and field athletic facility as well.
