Hockey’s first Rs 1,00,00,000 man
At the height of the HI-IHF wrangle over the fate of World Series Hockey and its players a few months back, Sandeep Singh made a call to Gurjinder Singh. The drag flick expert of the Indian national side had just heard that the 18-year-old, whose penalty corner talents he had held in high regard ever since the two had been part of the national camp in 2011, had just confirmed to play for the Chandigarh Comets in the ‘rebel’ league.
“Why did you have to take such a step?” the senior Indian pro asked. “I won’t be playing in the Indian team forever. In another few years you would have got a chance to play for the country,” Sandeep had berated, suggesting that Hockey India might see him as an outcast because of his participation in the unofficial league.
A couple of months later, with a tournament topping 19 goals and Rs 1.125 crore in prize money for his efforts, Gurjinder hasn’t done too badly for himself. The figure isn’t just unheard of in Indian hockey, but even at the world level. Even in the Euro League — a highly competitive professional tournament — the Player of the Tournament earns 5000 Euros (approx. Rs 3.5 lakh). This, for a man who has barely been on the fringes of national selection. One who has never represented the country at any level.
Gurjinder says Sandeep then made another call, a more appreciative one than the previous time. “He not only praised my shooting skills, but also claimed that I had scored more in one tournament than many players had in their entire careers,” Gurjinder says. “Another senior player told me not to worry about my future. He said that all the problems were between the two federations and can’t go on forever,” the teenager adds.
Earnest beginnings
While many of the players who competed in the tournament were ageing or returning from retirement, Gurjinder stood out because of his youth and the potential of his career being cut short at such an early age. A student at the Chandigarh Hockey and Football Academy, he had been a member of the national junior side since 2007, and had also been called to the national camp in 2011 — one of only two junior players retained when the squad was culled to 32.
“I didn’t make it to the national side, but I was selected as captain of the junior team, which was to participate in the Sultan Johor Cup. But a day before the tournament, I picked up an ankle injury in practice. It was a minor injury and the doctor told me it would heal in a few days. Yet, I was dropped,” he says. “I had already signed up to play in the WSH. And because of the suddenness of being dropped from the junior side, I decided to stick by WSH despite the controversies that erupted.” And thanks to that decision, Gurjinder can now count the unprecedented positives that have changed his life for good.
“I hadn’t ever been on TV, so when I did, my friends from the village made plenty of calls to tell me just what they felt,” he says. “Now, even people on the road recognise me. That is a truly amazing experience.” Post WSH, fame has brought along its more rewarding cousin — Indian Oil has signed him as an employee, while he is also currently fielding offers from clubs around Europe.
A different ball game
Not unlike many Europeans, Gurjinder had tried his hand, foot actually, at football before shifting to hockey at a serious level. “Six years ago, we conducted trials in Batala. And that’s when this boy joined us on a permanent basis,” recalls the hockey coach at the Chandigarh Football and Hockey Academy in Chandigarh, Gurvinder Singh. His love for football kept him in perfect physique, something that would soon help with his drag-flicking abilities. “He was the fittest player, a reason Chandigarh won its only Gold Cup,” believes his coach from his junior days.
His days at the Sector 42 sports complex helped immensely, as senior India players such as Rajpal Singh and Deepak Thakur would often train on that turf, and the academy youngsters would practice against them. And almost always, Gurjinder would find a way through the defences of the Indian players. This was when the lad’s ability was spotted by the big guns, but Gurjinder’s talent had already made plenty of news well before he took up the game at a serious level.
Folk tales
A decade ago, Gurjinder had joined the Cheema Academy in Shahbad as a schoolboy, where coach Ranjeet Singh Cheema remembers him as a shy kid, who would not speak much, and train for hours on end. “I can still recall the day he joined in 2002. Gurjinder didn’t even know how to tie the Juda (the turban worn by Sikh children),” Cheema says. “We had 8-10 boys in our academy, and Gurjinder and his brother Jaswinder came to us after they watched a game of hockey in their government primary school. They would often walk from their village in Sangatpur to the academy in Shahbad. It is a long walk.”
Nothing deterred Gurjinder from his goals, not even the fading of natural light. “They would switch on lights on scooters and motorcycles and practice in the ‘floodlit’ academy all night long,” the coach recalls.
Times, of course, have changed rather drastically. But Gurjinder can never forget his roots, or the sacrifices he and his family have made to get to the top. “My father is a farmer, so we never had money growing up. I had won awards before but never so much,” says Gurjinder, referring to his Rs 12,50,000 prize money for scoring the most goals in the WSH and the Rs 1 crore loot for being named the ‘Rockstar of the tournament. “Back in my academy days, I was awarded Rs 10,000 for winning the U-17 school nationals. I had never seen so much money at the same time,” he claims.
“With that money, I bought my first mobile phone, one with a black and white screen.” His first vehicle — a 100cc motorbike, now having clocked several thousand kilometres on the odometer — was financed through similar circumstances. The occasional prize money took care of the down payment, while the careful scrimping and saving of daily travel allowances paid for the rest.
A hard-earned reward
For Gurjinder’s 50-year-old father Sarwan Singh, the crore is still unthinkable, given that he has spent the better part of his adult life earning in the thousands. “With my income, I could only afford to put him in a government school. But Gurjinder wanted to go to a private school, like the rich boys,” the father recalls wistfully. Sarwan, however, believes that it was fate that put him there, as on the very first day of school, Gurjinder returned with an old stick, inspired by the hockey he watched in the playground. “We have only a small piece of land to farm and we earned about 10,000 annually from it. I even doubled up as a daily wage earner at a machine factory in Batala. Thankfully, his coach Ranjeet did not take any fees from us.”
The WSH-riches then, will go towards first mending the basics. And father Sarwan has his laundry list of changes ready. “The roof of our house is a tin one. I will get that cemented pucca,” he says. “I do not know much about money and banks. But these boys have learnt a lot in Chandigarh. I will ask them to buy a piece of land, where we can build a new home.”
For Gurjinder, this current windfall is such that he has yet to come to terms with its magnitude. But the boy does have a fair idea of what he’s going to go shopping for. “It sounds funny when any of my friends calls me a crorepati. I laugh and tell them to wait for the cheque to clear,” he says. “But once it does, my parents want me to buy an apartment. However, what I really want to buy is a jeep and an iPad.”