Team Goemkarponn
VERNA: Former Indian Olympians Mervyn Fernandis and Joaquim Carvalho are all braced for the long haul as they launched an ambitious school hockey programme in collaboration with Agnel Technical Education Complex at the Agnel Ashram Ground in Verna, on Monday.
“Our aim is simple: we want more Olympians coming out from Goa. If I am not mistaken, the two of us may well be among the last ones [Olympians] coming out of Goa,” Fernandes told eager students of the Fr. Agnel Multipurpose High School, on Monday morning.
“We are sort of convinced that the fruits of this programme may take a long time to manifest, but it will definitely happen in the long run and we will surely have some players coming out from Goa,” he added.
Carvalho and Fernandes have joined hands for a unique yet ambitious Fr. Agnel Multipurpose High School Hockey Programme that will ensure the development of the sport at the grassroots level starting right at the primary school level.
“This idea started off just a couple of months back during a casual chat with Fr. Agnelo Gomes (Director of the Agnel Technical Education Complex), and here we are today actually ensuring that this programme takes off on a right note,” Fernandes stressed.
On the cards were a couple of exhibition matches involving under-14 girls’ and boys’ teams following the welcome address delivered by Fr. Agnelo Gomes sfx. Participating teams were also handed out hockey kits at the hands of the chief guest and guest of honour.
“I was a student of Fatima High School in Ambernath (about 50 kms out of Mumbai), where the Pilar Fathers ran the school. A few of us who were interested in hockey went and told the priests that we would like to field a team at the inter-school tournament. I was as big as the hockey stick. Who knew at that time that I would be one day playing for my country and even winning an Olympic gold medal,” he recalled.
Both 65 now, Carvalho and Fernandes went on to serve Indian hockey for more than a decade during which time Fernandes added two silver medals (1978 Bangkok and 1982 Asian Games) to his 1980 Moscow Olympics gold, while Carvalho won silver at the Delhi Asiad and bronze at the Champions Trophy in Amstelveen the same year.
Carvalho had the onerous and tricky task of negotiating Indian hockey out of a slump when he was asked to lead the men’s national hockey team as coach at the 2008 Olympic Qualifiers, the 2007 Asia Cup, the 2007 Champions Challenge, the 2007 Sultan Azlan Shah, the 2007 Indo-Belgium Series and the 2008 Four Nations Tournament in Perth and Darwin. “The aim of this program is to catch them young and instill in our students the finer points of this lovely national game which is lagging behind in Goa,” said Fr. Agnelo Gomes. He further said, “We are planning to include hockey coaching as part of the regular curriculum of the students. They will be practicing hockey during their PT period so that they don’t have to come back for hockey practice after school. We also plan to create a hockey culture so that eventually a decade later these students could be playing at the state and national level.”
After the formal launch of the program, Joaquim Carvalho and Fr. Agnelo Gomes, had an interactive session with parents and guardians of the school kids who will be involved.
