MARGAO
Playing hockey on an astroturf and doing the same on a dirt track laden with pebbles or a cemented floor during a practice session ahead of a hockey tournament are two different things.
Ask any hockey player, official or coach as they will immediately say the two surfaces are miles apart. Young Goan players, especially from South Goa schools, taking part in the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs State Level Nehru Hockey U15 Boys tournament at Hockey Stadium, Peddem, Mapusa, have no choice before them.
They have to practise and learn the finer aspects of the game either on the paved surface at their school compound or on the cemented surface of their school hall or worse still, on the dirt grounds of the villages.
An eleven-a-side astroturf is miles apart, the only surface is in Peddem, Mapusa, several kilometres away and the one proposed in South Goa is yet to see the light of day.
So, players like Ansh Goankar, a student of Damodar English High School, Gudi-Paroda, have grown up practising and honing their skills on the village playground. For the record, Ansh scored a stunning goal, dribbling past seven players and scoring a goal against Uttaranchal last month at the sub-junior West Zone championship of Hockey India. A superlative feat.
Ansh is a rare talent to be nurtured and cared for, which many officials associated with the school like Sandeep Redkar, Laxman Prabhudessai and Amit Dessai call for. Ansh, along with five others, was part of the sub-junior team which took part in the sub-junior championship and knows a thing or two about playing on astroturf. But when it comes to daily practice they have to switch to the dirt track of Paroda.
The Gudi school players will have the advantage of playing on astroturf before while on the other hand, the astroturf will be an alien surface for some players of Our Lady of Lourdes HS, Utorda in an all-South Goa clash.
For the other south Goa schools taking part in the tournament like St Anthony HS Majorda, Perpetual Succour Convent HS Navelim and St Jude HS Betalbatim, none have artificial turf or have all-season terrain ground to practise. So, if any of the schools from Salcete need to hone their skills on artificial grounds they need to do it on 5-a-side grounds at Benaulim.
Talk to any former Olympians from the country and to any knowledgeable person connected with hockey and its youth development, they will tell you that in the modern era, just like futsal in football, it is the 5-a-side astroturfs that are the places where the young hockey players across the country and in the world are giving their technical skills new direction working under expert coaches.
Talking about the hockey coaches in the State, of the three coaches working with Sports Authority of Goa, all three are based in North Goa, clearly indicating where the power centre lies when it comes to hockey talent in the State. But one man, Melvin Pereira, Chairman of Kings School, Sao Jose De Areal, is trying to change the hockey equation of north-south, especially on the school front when it comes to infrastructure.
“We have plans to purchase land for our school campus for the hockey ground,” said Melvin of plans to upgrade the sports infrastructure at his school.
At Kings School, coaches Sagun Gaonkar and Vijay Singh are trying to carry the hockey agenda forward with stellar efforts backed by the sports management. Till 2019, Lester Gurjao, the SAG coach, used to travel to South Goa to train the boys and girls of the school but post-COVID-19 disruption, the programme has not been revived.
“We had SAG Coach Lestor Gurjao coming thrice a week to train our boys and girls. But this never got revived post-pandemic. We have invested in all the equipment required, including the goalposts which some clubs from South Goa used to borrow from us for their tournaments,” revealed Melvin.
To produce champion and quality hockey players, you need good infrastructure and also quality coaching and investment in it and Melvin knows a thing or two about it. “We had deputed our coach Sagun Gaonkar for a Practical Assessment at Kalinga Hockey Stadium, Odisha,” he said about the hockey project at Kings School.
Till then, an astroturf and good infrastructure for training young talent in hockey in South Goa looks an elusive thing. At least for the moment.
