Follow up to an editorial by Arumugam in Stick2hockey.com

Here are the Top 10 reasons why IHF President K. P. S. Gill needs to either resign from his post or be shown the door by the Government of India.

1. Allergy to Victories

K. P. S. Gill does not like India winning hockey matches at the international level. Any title win by India is followed by reckless sacking of victorious coaches and leading players, mercilessly breaking the winning combination.

After India's historic Asian Games victory in Bangkok in 1998, Gill sacked the victorious coach Kaushik and 6 leading players. The result: India lost the 1999 Indo-Pak hockey series 3-6.

After India's first-ever Asia Cup victory in 2003, India lost 7 of 8 tournaments due to wayward sacking and shuffling of players and coaches.

2. Moral Responsibility

It is not in Gill's upbringing or culture to accept responsibility for defeats. It is always someone else's fault.

Gill has been the Selection Committee Chairman for the last 11 years. During that time, India suffered its 3 worst results in Olympic hockey - 8th in Atlanta (1996), 7th in Sydney (2000) and 7th in Athens (2004).

The second-worst and third-worst results for India in the World Cup have come under Gill - 9th in Utrecht (1998) and 10th in Kuala Lumpur (2002).

Gill has lost all 3 Indo-Pak hockey series under his presidentship.

One has to be a moral person to accept moral responsibility. Gone are the days when a Railway Minister (Lal Bahadur Shastri) accepted responsibility for a railway accident and resigned from his post. Such people were moral giants. Unfortunately, Gill is not one.

3. Spoiling India's Name Abroad

Gill is the worst ambassador to India's hockey reputation. Under Gill, India has become a third-world country in hockey, steadily accumulating losses in every continent.

Gill should retire from hockey and work in a laboratory - he is forever experimenting. However, experimentation that leads to mounting Indian losses in international tournaments is foolish.

The same combination is never played for two consecutive tournaments. New and untested players are paraded in international tournaments at a huge cost - under Gill, India has a losing record against all the major hockey playing countries in the world.

Gill handed over the responsibility of coaching India's national team to an unknown foreign coach. What is the proof that the best available candidate was selected? What is the proof that all the available candidates were approached? What are the terms of appointment of Gerhard Rach? 57 years after Independence, why does Gill pay foreigners but not Indians?

Why does Gill ignore the sordid past of Gerhard Rach and Oliver Kurtz? Rach was convicted for fraud and tax evasion totalling DM 16 million (€8.2 million) in 2000-2001, and even served an 8-month jail term. Kurtz was suspended for 2 years from international hockey for returning a positive test to cocaine at a pre-Olympic tournament in Atlanta in early 1996.

4. Neglect of Domestic Hockey

India's national hockey championships were held even during the two World Wars. However, in the Gill era, no nationals have been held since 2000. There have been only 3 national championships in the last 11 years. What is Gill's excuse?

One of the main duties of the Indian Hockey Federation is to hold the annual national championship. Gill does everything else but hold the nationals. Gill should be charged with dereliction of duty and forced out, kicking and screaming, into the sunset.

5. Dhanraj Phobia

K. P. S. Gill does not sleep well at night - he is haunted by the ghost of Dhanraj, the darling of India's sports media. In any other sport, the likes of Pillai would have been hailed and marketed as a role model. Any sports requires the presence of stars to bring in fans to the stadia and viewers to the television sets. But in Gill’s raj, superstar Dhanraj is systematically sacked and humiliated.

There has been a disturbing trend of late. Gill wants to place the blame of the Athens Olympics disaster on Dhanraj’s shoulders, using every means available to make him the culprit. In reality, Pillai played 5 spectacular matches at Athens of the 6 that he played in (he got 2 minutes of playing time in the 7th match, his farewell Olympic match).

6. Losing Elections, Losing Face

Gill got a paltry 4 votes in the FIH Executive Board Member election (Perth 2002), and a paltry 3 votes in the Asian Hockey Federation President election. What a shame! A huge money of Government money is wasted in all these futile exercises.

Gill should know that unlike in India, he cannot win elections by strong-arm tactics.

7. Hiring and Firing of Coaches

The list of coaches fired by the K. P. S. Gill regime is given below:

Year	Fired Coach	When Fired
Nov 1994	Zafar Iqbal	After the Hiroshima Asian Games
Aug 1996	Cedric D'Souza	After the Atlanta Olympics
Dec 1996	V. Bhaskaran	After the Champions Trophy
Aug 1997	Pargat Singh	After the Hamburg Panasonic Cup
Jun 1998	V. Bhaskaran	After the Utrecht World Cup
Dec 1998	M. K. Kaushik	After the Asian Games
Feb 1999	V. Bhaskaran	After the Indo-Pak series
Jun 1999	Harcharan Singh	After the European Tour
Sep 2000	V. Bhaskaran	After the Sydney Olympics
Mar 2002	Cedric D'Souza	During the Kuala Lumpur World Cup
Mar 2002	C. R. Kumar	After the Kuala Lumpur World Cup
Jul 2004	Rajinder Singh	Before the Athens Olympics

Gill plays musical chairs with national hockey coaches. Gills appoints coaches and then betrays them without any notice.

8. Autocratic, Not Democratic

Gil did not have any Selection Committee for the 2004 Olympics until there was an outcry in the media and the Government stepped in to correct the wrongdoing. Gill denied continuity to star players on his whim and fancy. No same set of coaching staff was employed for any two successive tournaments, be it senior or junior levels.

Gill forced 'rest' on players and coaches whether they needed it or not, and whether they requested it or not. Maybe it was Gill who needed 'rest' all this while.

9. Nepotism

We are in the 21st century, but the IHF office still does not have STD facility to make long-distance calls. Gill charges residence telephone bills, amounting to more than Rs. 10 lakhs a year, to the IHF.

10. Loose Tongue

Gill suffers from verbal diarrhea. Though he is not an expert, Gill comments on techniques and tactics of the game, and ends up eating his own words.

Gill once called a journalist a ‘scoundrel’ in September 2003. Well, it takes a scoundrel to recognise another.

he 2004 National Hockey League (NHL) in England runs from September 25 through December 11. The 3 men's divisions in the England's NHL - Premier 1, Premier 2 and Premier 3 - have signed 27 foreign players from 9 different countries, as the following table shows.

Division	Club	Foreign Player	Country
Premier 1	Chelmsford	Jason Tomlinson Gareth Carr Craig Fulton	Australia South Africa South Africa
	Hampstead	Kike Ballbe Sala Marc Garcia-Cascon	Spain Spain
	Loughborough Students	Cameron Bennett	Australia
	Old Loughtonians	Mike Cullen	South Africa
	Reading	Keegan Smith Simon Towns	Australia New Zealand
	St. Albans	Paul Verscheueren Rob Lancaster	Netherlands New Zealand
	Teddington	James Nation	New Zealand
Premier 2	Beeston	Craig Keegan	Australia
	Doncaster	Hugh Jellie	Australia
	East Grinstead	Kwan Browne Dwain Quan Chan	Trinidad & Tobago Trinidad & Tobago
	Old Georgians	Douglas Saxby	South Africa
	Southgate	Rob Schilling Ghazanfar Ali Bruce Jacobs	Germany Pakistan South Africa
Premier 3	Holcombe	Greg Nicol Steve Evans Denzil Dolley	South Africa South Africa South Africa
	Harrogate	Duncan Mcleary Rohan Thomas	Australia Barbados
	Havant	Warren Gilmour	Zimbabwe
	Indian Gymkhana	Mohammad Anis	Pakistan

Either Indian players are lacking ambition or lacking incentives - there is not a single Indian contracted to play in England's NHL. Talented u-21 players, veterans on the verge of retirement, national players overlooked for the Indo-Pak hockey series - at least one or two Indian players should have been playing in the 2004 English NHL.

The IHF has been talking about an NHL in India for a while - but any nationwide league in India in 2004 is but a mirage. So what are Indian players to do in order to keep their competitive edge?

If the IHF thinks that a foreign coach is good for Indian hockey, by that same logic, playing in a foreign league would be good for Indian players too. They would be exposed to different training regimens and coaching strategies and playing styles. Playing in England would give the Indian players a chance to play against Olympians like Greg Nicol of South Africa or Ghazanfar Ali of Pakistan or Simon Towns of New Zealand.

The IHF should encourage budding Indian talent to play in foreign leagues in Europe and Australia - that's where the best players in the world play, and that's where the top teams in the world come from. It is indeed surprising that Indian players are unable to look beyond their domestic assignments. Their play remains stagnant, there is no infusion of new ideas and there is no world view.

he latest Sahara World Hockey Rankings have been released (post Athens Olympics), with the Indian men being ranked world no. 5, and the Indian women ranked world no. 15.

Nos.	Men	Women
1	Australia	Argentina
2	Germany	Netherlands
3	Netherlands	Australia
4	Pakistan	China
5	India	Germany
6	South Korea	South Korea
7	Spain	New Zealand
8	England	England
9	New Zealand	Spain
10	Argentina	Japan
11	Malaysia	South Africa United States
12	South Africa
13	Egypt	Ireland Ukraine
14	Belgium
15	Japan	India

11 countries show gender-equality in the sport, by being ranked in the top 15 in both men's and women's hockey, as seen in the table below:

Nos.	Men	Nos.	Women
1	Australia	3	Australia
2	Germany	5	Germany
3	Netherlands	2	Netherlands
5	India	15	India
6	South Korea	6	South Korea
7	Spain	9	Spain
8	England	8	England
9	New Zealand	7	New Zealand
10	Argentina	1	Argentina
12	South Africa	11	South Africa
15	Japan	10	Japan

Sahara Parivar has a 3-year deal with FIH for title sponsorship of the world ranking system. In a nice piece of collaboration between the federation, sponsor and the media, the Sahara World Hockey Rankings will be guaranteed regular exposure in India, Pakistan, Middle East and Asia on cable and satellite broadcaster TEN Sports.

TEN Sports will produce four 30-second editorial spots each month, focussing on the updated rankings and other topics such as player and team features. The spots are to be aired daily during primetime on TEN Sports, and will also be offered free of charge to other global broadcasters.

The rankings system was devised by FIH in October 2003 to establish open, fair and clear pool compositions of major FIH and continental federation events and their qualifiers.

ustralia has withdrawn from the 2004 Samsung Champions Trophy to be held in Lahore this December due to security reasons. Australia's withdrawal came a day after a suicide bombing in a mosque in Lahore killed 4 people.

Earlier bombings were at a Shiite mosque which killed 31 people in Sialkot, and at a gathering of Sunni radicals in Multan which killed 40 people. All these 3 cities - Lahore, Sialkot and Multan are in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

It is the first time in the 26-year history of the Champions Trophy that Australia will not feature in the tournament, considered to be the biggest event on the international hockey calendar after the Olympic Games and the World Cup.

India, who finished 7th in the Athens Olympics, was invited by the FIH to replace Olympic champion Australia at the event. India had figured in the Champions Trophy editions at Cologne (2002) and Amsterdam (2003), and Lahore would be a hat-trick of participation. India is an automatic qualifier, as host, for 2005 edition to be held in Chennai, making it the first time that India would have participated in 4 Champions Trophy editions in a row.

The other five teams in the 2004 Champions Trophy are hosts Pakistan, world champions Germany, Holland, Spain and New Zealand. The elite six-nation annual event is scheduled to be held from December 4 to 12.

Stan Salazaar in his hockey library in Perth, Australia

erth, Australia, is home to the largest one-man collection of hockey books in the world. Stan Salazaar, shown above in his hockey library, has over the years collected hundreds of hockey books, magazines, lapel pins, stamps, tournament program guides and memorabilia.

Stan is looking for the following six books to add to his collection

1. "Goal" by Dhyan Chand (1952)
2. "Bengal Hockey Association Golden Jubilee: 1908-1958"
3. "The World's Hockey Champions" by M. N. Masood.(1937)
4. "Story of the Olympics" by Melville de Mellow
5. "Hockey in India" by W. Troup (1908)
6. "Cherished Moments with a Stick" by John D'Abrew

If anyone wants to sell/swap/give away the above 6 books, please contact Stan. These books will be an important addition to his unique one-man collection.

Some background information on Stan the Man - he was born in Akola, while his wife Margaret was born in Bhusaval. He studied at La Martiniere College in Lucknow. Stan has fond memories of being coached by K. D. Singh 'Babu' while playing hockey in Uttar Pradesh.

Stan plays veterans hockey once a week in summer, and 3 times a week in winter. He represents his state of Western Australia in the over-60s division in the Australian Veterans Championships. He has just returned from representing his state in the 2004 Veterans Championship held in Launceston, Tasmania.

World record holder Sohail Abbas of Pakistan (Photograph by Getty Images)

he 2004 Indo-Pak 'Dosti' series was held from September 24 to October 10, with 4 tests in Pakistan and 4 tests in India.

In one stroke, the IHF did away with the much-touted forward line that failed to deliver at the Athens Olympics. Prabhjyot Singh and Gagan Ajeet Singh were 'disciplined'. Dhanraj Pillai and Baljeet Dhillon saw the writing on the wall and declared themselves unavailable for the series. Deepak Thakur is still recovering from chest injury.

In place of the Athens forward line were an untested bunch of forwards. The burden of manning the attack fell on rookies. As a result, India could win only 2 matches in the 8-match series.

India's World Cup-winning captain Ajeetpal Singh, and former Olympians-turned-selectors B. P. Govinda, Aslam Sher Khan and Surinder Singh Sodhi accompanied the Indian team on the tour to Pakistan and were felicitated by the Pakistan Hockey Federation.

In a reciprocal gesture, Jahangir Butt, Islahuddin Siddiqi, Akhtar Rasool and Hassan Sardar accompanied the Pakistani team on the tour to India and were felicitated by the Indian Hockey Federation.

About 100 hockey fans, with some carrying banners reading “Welcome to Pakistan” and “Welcome to the Indian team”, gathered outside Karachi airport to cheer the visitors. More than 1000 security personnel guarded the stadium, hotel and Indian hockey team members during their 4-day stay in Karachi. The series opener in Karachi was played under the watchful eyes of a bomb disposal squad.

In Quetta, fans invaded the pitch and mobbed the Pakistani and Indian players seeking autographs as soon as the final whistle was blown. The citizens of Quetta waving the Indian national flag was an unbelievable sight.

In Delhi and Chandigadh, the IHF made a foolish decision of hosting the matches in the afternoon at 1:30 pm. There was very poor crowd response in Delhi (it was a weekday). Both the teams were tired by the sapping heat, and in the Delhi match, coach Gerhard Rach of India got dehydrated and had to be treated by the doctor. The officials of the IHF were seated in the shade in the stands; hence they could not understand the implications of their brainless decision.

In the Amritsar test played on October 8, Sohail Abbas became the world's leading goal-scorer (post-war era) when he scored his 268th goal in his 217th international. The previous mark belonged to Paul Litjens of Netherlands, who scored 267 goals in 177 internationals. When Sohail broke the world record, the entire Pakistani team gathered in the centre of the pitch, and Abbas walked under an umbrella of hockey sticks as the audience accorded him a standing ovation

Incidentally, Sohail also holds the record for scoring the most goals in a calendar year (60 in 1999), beating Paul Litjens’ record of 58 goals in 1978.

India's match results in the 2004 Indo-Pak 'Dosti Series' were as follows:

Date	City	Stadium	Crowd	Score	Goal Scorers - India
Sep 24	Karachi	Hockey Club of Pakis tan	5000	Pakistan 2 - India 1	Arjun Halappa (3 m)
Sep 27	Quetta	Gen. Musa Khan Stadium	5000 House-full	India 4 - Pakistan 1	Sandeep Singh (14, 17 m) Ignace Tirkey (33 m) Tushar Khandekar (61 m)
Sep 29	Peshawar	Lala Ayub Stadium	House-full	Pakistan 3 - India 2	Hari Prasad (48 m) Arjun Halappa (60 m)
Oct 1	Lahore	National Stadium	25,000	India 4 - Pakistan 4	Vikram Pillai (15 m) Sandeep Singh (39 m) Arjun Halappa (49 m) Ignace Tirkey (51 m)
Oct 4	Delhi	Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium	9000	Pakistan 3 - India 1	Sandeep Michael (50 m)
Oct 6	Chandigadh	Sector 42 Stadium	28,000 House-full	India 1 - Pakistan 1	Arjun Halappa (33 m)
Oct 8	Amritsar	Guru Nanak Dev University Stadium	House-full	Pakistan 2 - India 1	Arjun Halappa (53 m)
Oct 10	Hyderabad	Gachibowli Hockey Complex		India 2 - Pakistan 0	Sandeep Michael (17 m) Tushar Khandekar (21 m)

Man of the Series Adrian D'Souza started a trend of rushing to the top of the 'D' during penalty corners, which was very gutsy since drag-flickers achieve a speed of 130-140 kph. Due to this strategy, Pakistan managed to score just 8 goals from the 46 penalty corners that were awarded to them.

''Sohail's conversion average was 2 goals per game against India. After I started rushing out, it dropped to less than 1,'' said Adrian. Sohail scored 7 goals in 8 matches and even the great Pakistani has acknowledged Adrian's prowess.

The Indian team for the 2004 Indo-Pak hockey series was as follows:

Goalkeepers: Adrian D'Souza, Devesh Chauhan

Full-backs: Dileep Tirkey (captain), Harpal Singh, William Xalco, Sandeep Singh

Half-backs: Viren Rasquinha, Vikram Pillai, Ignace Tirkey, V. S. Vinay, Girish Pimpale, Prabodh Tirkey, Vivek Gupta

Forwards: Adam Sinclair, Arjun Halappa, Sandeep Michael, Tushar Khandekar, Hari Prasad

Officials: Chief Coach - Gerhard Rach; Assistant Coach - Jagbeer Singh; Manager - Satish Kumar Sharma; Trainer - Sampath Kumar

The Indian team being escorted to its cottage on arrival in the Olympic Village in 1936

he Photograph of the Month for October 2004 is taken from Olympian M. N. Masood's book "World's Hockey Champions - 1936". The Indian Olympic hockey team is about to enter its cottage in the Olympic Village. Following are some excerpts:

'Village' is almost too modest a name for this singular project, 20 miles from Berlin, which the Defence Force of the Reich erected as its gift to the athletic youth of the world.

Covering an area of 140 acres, one fourth of which was thick woodland with pine, beech and oak trees, it was attractively situated and an ideal place to live in. With the scenic beauties of the land, its gentle green slopes, picturesque valley and lake, which offered refuge to bird and beast, it gave us the happy feeling that we were living in the midst of nature.

There were 140 one-storey dwellings, called 'Cottages'. Each cottage contained 16, 20 or 25 beds, baths and showers, telephone service and a club room opening out on to a terrace. Refrigerators and all modern equipment were also to be found in each cottage.

Two stewards were always there to look after the cottage and supply our needs. The number of our cottage was 131, its name was ‘House Elbing' and Otto and Schmidt were the names of our stewards.

As at Los Angeles, so in Berlin, no woman was allowed in the village, not even a visitor. The women athletes had their quarters in ‘Friesenhaus’, near the Olympic Stadium, nine miles away.

lobal Telecom (GT) Calling Cards was the title sponsor of the Pakistan leg of the 2004 Indo-Pak 'Dosti' Series, which was officially called the GT Challenge series. For the Pakistan leg, Global Telecom awarded cash prizes for the Player of the Series to Rehan Butt (USD 2000), Best Goalkeeper to Adrian D'Souza (USD 1000) and Top Scorer of the Series to Sohail Abbas (USD 1000).

The Marketing wing of the PHF was also able to bring in a host of co-sponsors like Lawrencepur, Prime Dairies, Seasons Canola Oil, Chohan Real Estate, Askari Water and Malik Sports.

On the other hand, the Indian leg of the 2004 Indo-Pak 'Dosti' Series was without a title sponsor, mainly due to the dismal performance of the Indian team in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Despite the lack of sponsors, there were two cash prizes awarded at the end of the India leg of the Indo-Pak 'Dosti' Series. Sohail Abbas was given the Best Achiever award (USD 1000), while Adrian D’Souza was declared the Man of the Series (USD 2000).

elevision rights for the Pakistan leg of the 2004 Indo-Pak hockey series were awarded to TEN Sports, and the matches of the series were shown in the Indian subcontinent, Middle East, Far East and Europe.

Television rights for the Indian leg of the 2004 Indo-Pak hockey series were awarded to both Doordarshan (terrestrial) and ESPN (satellite).

Jean-Christophe Klotz from Paris, France is this edition's Visitor of the Month. Jean-Christophe used to play for CASG in Paris. He wrote the following to BharatiyaHockey.org:

I played in the French u-21 team, and also the military national team. I am presently working as a documentary film director.

I worked on a series of documentaries for European Public Television ARTE, focussing on the great sports duels around the world. As part of the series, I directed a film about USSR vs. Romania in women's gymnastics, and another one on Kenya vs. Ethiopia in long distance running.

I would like to make a movie on the India vs. Pakistan rivalry in hockey, maybe later this year. For this film, I'd probably look for film footage from the golden age of Indian and Pakistani hockey. The film will end with a debate on Asian vs. European hockey, "art vs. efficiency", "grass vs. synthetic surface", etc. I'd also like the film to be a tribute to the craft and the art of the Asian hockey players.

I see it as a very interesting way to talk about sports on television. We would like to spend some time with the athletes, and not just talk about their last game. The program will also give some background on the historical and political context surrounding the sports events themselves.

he highest scorer for India in Indo-Pak matches is Gagan Ajeet Singh with 17 goals. Interestingly, Gagan's father Ajeet Singh (1972 Olympics, 1973 World Cup) never scored a goal against Pakistan in his career.

India's leading goal-scorers against Pakistan (minimum of 6 goals) are as follows:

Goals	Player
17	Gagan Ajeet Singh
15	Mohinder Pal Singh Baljeet Singh Dhillon
11	Dhanraj Pillai
9	Rajinder Singh
8	Mohammad Shaheed Prabhjyot Singh
7	Deepak Thakur Dileep Tirkey
6	Thoiba Singh Jugraj Singh

Gagan scored 2 goals in his debut against 4-time world champions Pakistan in the 1999 Indo-Pak hockey series match held at National Stadium in New Delhi. Gagan was awarded the Man of the Match for his effort.

Gagan fired the winning goal in the thrilling 4-3 win over Pakistan in the semi-final of 14th Asian Games at Busan on 10 October, 2002.

Gagan scored a peach of a goal in the first Afro-Asian Games hockey final held in Hyderabad in October 2003, where India won the gold.

One month earlier, Gagan scored a precious goal when India overwhelmed Pakistan 4-2 in the 6th Asia Cup final, enabling India to win its first-ever gold in Asian Hockey Federation's showpiece event.

Among Gagan's goals against Pakistan, he counts the angular reverse hit in the 2003 Champions Trophy league match as one of his most unforgettable efforts. In that match, Gagan made an amazing sprint past crowded defenders to essay a reverse hit from an acute angle from the right-side of the 'D', leaving Pakistani keeper Ahmed Alam stranded. This was the match where India won 7-4, after being down 2-4.

Article courtesy Akber Wahidi