Titbits Here and there: “An English translation will be a good idea”
After being with China’s men and women’s teams for nine years, famed Korean coach Kim Sam Ryul is back to his home state. He is now consultant with South Korean women’s team. He is surprised that China girls, world number three team not long ago, is doing poorly here in the Hague World Cup. When asked about their 0-5 loss, he said “terrible”. And hastened to add: “This is a new team”. Sam, whether with the national teams or not, is a regular at all the world cups held in the last three decades

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Bob Dividson was an enthusiastic participant in most functions here. He broke with his friends and came to this write to chat about India. When asked you did you leave the Hockey Development project of India, he was quick to reply, I did not drop, its new FIH president who dropped it, ask him. He still fails to understand why a country should shun a coach in the calibre of Ric Charlesworth. When the discussion meandered around past FIH president Els van Breda Vriesman, he told she is busy with a medical firm as consultant and also doing lot of jobs for International Olympic Committee. ‘She is definitely coming to Kyocera stadium to watch the World Cup one day”.

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The press room here is a huge tent. First part, enclosed and normally not for others, houses FIH team and Arjen Rahusen’s. Arjen is local media officer. Second part in five rows is for photographers. The big chunk is for print and other media. Most of the old heads are absent especially the regulars like Bill Colwill and Pat Rowley. They are very old now”, says Sushan Edgill, who is now secretary of the Hockey Writers Club. There is 4-member strong All India Radio team here, doing voice commentary of India matches. No one is from popular newspaper or television media. Indian media by and large gave a miss to this world cup. Veteran Sundeep Misra’s TV news agency is busy shooting all events, is an exception. There are 5 other freelancers here. Contrarily, Malaysia’s leading paper The Star has sent a reporter and photographer.

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Will Pakistan be back or not is the interesting question one or two old timers wonder here. Though Pakistan team is not here, former coaches Ishahuddin Siddique and Junior coach Alam were spotted here yesterday. They seemed to have come to attend various FIH courses. The Pak group entered the stadium after halftime of match between Germany and Holland.

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Its difficult here to say whether adults form the crowd or the kids. Nice to see both of them in equal numbers. There are more program to keep the kids engaged, and most stalls in the park area seem to be aware of this, and are ready with kids-friendly items.

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There is a book stall in the centre of the Park Area between two turfs. All books are in Dutch. What catches one’s eyes is a flurry of books written by known players and coaches, Mar Lammers, Roelant Oltmans, Jacques Brinkmann to quote a few. The last one had a signature signing event yesterday, saw good response. His book costs good 19 Euros. On seeing me he told the publisher: “This gentleman from India says the book will have good market if it is in English too”. Hopefully so.