The Hindu : Sport / Volleyball : A tale of empty stomachs and frayed nerves

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 04, 2007
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Sport - Volleyball

A tale of empty stomachs and frayed nerves

Stan Ryan

VATAKARA: Nearly two decades ago, whenever the great Balwant Singh `Bhallu' came down to Vatakara to play volleyball, the local people would never allow him to walk the town's narrow streets.

"Cars would stop by and offer him a lift," said Gopinathan, the younger brother of respected former national coach Achutha Kurup, who hails from Vatakara.

Vatakara is still in love with volleyball, the decent crowds at the league phase of the ongoing National youth championship are proof enough despite the event being a paid show. But in their enthusiasm to lure a bigger crowd, the organisers have been delaying matches every evening here, making life difficult for the players.

Late starts

Almost every day, the evening session, which offers some of the best fixtures, starts more than an hour late than the fixed schedule. It ends early the next morning, one day it got over only at 3 a.m.

Unfortunately, the late finish often means that a few teams have to end the day on an empty stomach, as the players' mess closes much earlier.

"When we went back to the mess for our `dinner' around 2 a.m. today, our players were abused for coming so late. No food was served," said Balbir Suri, the Himachal Pradesh manager, on Thursday.

"We'll solve the problem today, we're already taking necessary steps," assured K.T. Abdurahiman, the VFI joint secretary and the Control Committee chairman of the Youth National here, on Thursday evening.

Tempers running high

Tempers have been running high here over the late matches and on Wednesday morning, Karnataka coach Made Gowda had a heated argument with Syed Yousuf, a member of the Volleyball Federation of India's Special Referees Commission. The two almost got physical.

"We have been getting the last match every day... very unfair," shouted Made Gowda and he seemed to have a point too.

The local organisers, who hope to collect nearly Rs. 5 lakh from ticket sales, have been blaming the rain — and it's been pouring heavily every night — for the late matches and for all their other woes but little effort has been taken to start matches early.

Heavy rains

The tournament was supposed to have been played on three courts but after heavy rain, the slush outside the third rectangle, placed outside the stadium, forced the organisers to give up that court.

Naturally, the schedule went haywire.

Life has been difficult for the visiting media too with the town facing long hours of power failure through the day.

Volleyball is the most popular sport in Vatakara and for a friendly town which embraced `Bhallu', the current state of affairs as regards treatment meted out to the players is a big letdown.

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