The Hindu : Sport : Thousands pay homage to Sathyan

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Thursday, Jul 20, 2006

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Sport - Sports : General

Thousands pay homage to Sathyan

Principal Correspondent

KOZHIKODE: More than thousand people paid homage to former Indian football captain V.P. Sathyan here on Wednesday.

The mortal remains of the player, who was fatally knocked down by an electric train in Chennai on Tuesday, reached here at 3.10 p.m., but a huge crowd had been thronging the Kozhikode District Football Association (KDFA) office from 11 a.m. to pay last respects to their departed hero.

His body was kept at the main hall of the KDFA office, near the Corporation Stadium. And for those footballers who played along with him — I.M. Vijayan, Jo Paul Ancheri, C.V. Pappachan, U. Sharaf Ali, T.C. Chacko, Kurikesh Mathew, A. Sakeer and P.T. Mehboob — it was something unbearable.

"I played with Sathyan at this stadium," said Sakeer, who was his Kerala Police teammate for six years. "Sathyan was a fine player, and he was quite friendly. I will never forget a match in an all-India tournament in Chennai when we were trailing 0-1. But Sathyan came upfront, and helped me score a goal before scoring one himself to give us a memorable victory."

The sporting fraternity is yet to come to terms with Sathyan's tragic end. At Kozhikode, former international players Vijayan and Pappachan, who scored many goals after being set up by Sathyan, were struggling to control their emotions.

Sathyan's body was taken to his hometown at Thalassery at around 4 p.m., and a bigger crowd had been waiting there too.

Nearly a thousand people were present at the MSP Hall in Malappuram as well, where the body was kept for an hour in the afternoon.

Earlier in the morning, the vehicle carrying the body stopped for a few minutes at Palakkad for people to pay homage.

It reached Thalassery late on Wednesday evening, and was placed at the Mekkunnu Public Health Centre for half-an-hour. The funeral rites were performed at Mekkunnu at 7 p.m. with State honours.

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