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Tuesday, Feb 24, 2009
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Veteran Olympians honoured

Special Correspondent

— Photo: Sandeep Saxena

FELICITATED: Mohammad Zulfiqaruddin, Syed Abdus Salam, S.S. Narayan, Samar Banerjee, Nikhil Nandy, P.K. Banerjee and Ahmed Hussain, seen with Sports Minister M.S. Gill on Monday.

NEW DELHI: Their voice quivered as they gratefully acknowledged the honour. Their legs, which once carried them in swift motions on a football pitch, were not strong anymore.

But these grand old men of the 1956 Indian football team which won laurels at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games won the hearts of one and all at a function held at the India Islamic Cultural Centre here on Monday.

Led by their captain Samar Banerjee, and kept in good humour by the energetic P.K. Banerjee, five other members of that team flew down to Delhi on the invitation of Sports Minister M.S. Gill, to receive recognition for their wonderful feat 53 years ago. “It seems like it happened just yesterday,” quipped Nikhil Nandy.

“A pity we can’t be associated with the game,” said Nandy and his pain was quite understandable.

Best ever finish

He was part of that team which finished fourth at the Olympics, the best ever finish by India. His sentiments were shared by Ahmed Hussain, S.S. Narayan, Syed Abdus Salam and Mohammad Zulfiqaruddin. The other two surviving members of that team, T. Balaram and K.C. Pal, could not make it. The team recently lost Peter Thangaraj, one of its most illustrious members.

Mr. Gill had met some of these players at Kolkata recently and decided to honour them, a move that brought these veterans on the same platform after a long time.

Some of them do go and watch football but some can’t because there is hardly any competition in their city.

Zulfiqaruddin, who could deceptively kick using either of his feet, and Salam, come from Hyderabad and watch most of the action only on television.

Narayan, a goalkeeper of sterling quality, is “forced” to watch the I-League matches as a judge to decide the man of the match winner. “It is sometimes a torture because there are not any goals scored these days,” confided Narayan.

Kind words

He, however, had kind words for the players and some harsh observations for the administration.

In a splendid gesture, Samar Banerjee lived up to his image as a caring captain when he requested the audience to observe a minute’s silence in the memory of nine members of his team. “They departed too soon,” he mumbled.

True to their nature, the veteran heroes of Indian football, all 70-plus and visibly tired, put up a graceful front when obliging the overbearing media.

They were each presented with a silver plaque and a token cash honour of Rs. 1.5 lakh.

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