The Autobiography of Balbir Singh (Senior)
By Samuel Banerjee, Vikas Publishers, 1977
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1950 Nationals |
The 1950 Nationals were held at Bhopal. My old friend and brilliant goalkeeper Ram Parkash was the team captain. It was standard practice to change captains every year. It was an unwritten convention that one could lead the state only once. 14 players in the list of 16 were from Punjab Police. We fielded almost an India XI in strength. |
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he
year 1950 was Punjab Hockey Association's silver jubilee year. On this occasion,
the Punjab state championship was thrown open to outstation teams. A total of 29
teams assembled for the championship at Ludhiana. Punjab Police beat PEPSU
Police to annex the trophy.
The 1950 National Hockey Championships were held at Bhopal. My old friend and brilliant goalkeeper Ram Parkash was the team captain. It was standard practice for the Punjab team to change captains every year. It was an unwritten convention that one could lead the state only once.
Yet again, Punjab Police provided a big chunk of talent to the state team - 14 players in the list of 16 were from Punjab Police. The other two were Santokh Singh (Amritsar) and Harbaksh Singh (Sikh Regimental Centre). We fielded almost an India XI in strength.
We knew we would face the toughest opposition from the home team, Bhopal. True to expectation, Punjab and Bhopal clashed in the final. Our defence played very well with Dharam and Tarlochan shutting out all the scoring moves of the Bhopal forwards. In the forward line, we piled on excessive pressure on the Bhopal defence.
We won 4-2 after leading 4-0 at the interval. In the second half, the umpires started pulling up our players for innocuous infringements. At one stage, three of our key players were sidelined. It was in this period that Bhopal scored twice.
When we queried the umpire about it, he said, "The match was so one-sided that it would have been an insult to the national hockey championship game had Punjab won by a bigger margin. I had to balance the teams."
What logic! Anyway, Punjab were national champions for the second time.
Punjab Win National Hockey Championship (1947 - Mumbai)