Born on February 2, 1931 in Nehari village in the erstwhile Hoshiarpur district of Punjab, the midfield maestro Charanjit Singh was good at both sports and academics. He retired as Dean, Himachal Agricultural University. The centre-half led Punjab in the Inter-Universities, got selected for the State team and joined the top notch Punjab Police, all in 1950, which catapulted his game to a higher scale early in his hockey career.

A good show of him in the Bombay Gold Cup, Aga Khan Cup and the National championship, all held one after other in Bombay, got him the 1960 Olympics slot. India won the gold in his first major outing for the country, the Munich Hockey Festival (1959) and the streak continued for at least another five years. He played all but the finals at Rome Olympics due to injury. Four years later, he was proud captain who steered India to the Olympics gold at Tokyo.

Between Rome and Tokyo, he was part of all Indian engagements (1961 New Zealand Test Series in New Zealand, 1962 Asian Games, Jakarta (Indonesia), 1963 Test Kenya Series in Kenya and the title winning 1963 Lyons International in France). The Lyons victory achieved in a tight field of 12 teams was so well received in India that Charanjit Singh, the leader, was awarded top civilian award Padamshree, a year before he would win Olympic gold in Tokyo!

The proud captain of the Tokyo Olympics announced his retirement prematurely in 1965, as he got a plum job in the Agricultural University which he could not deny. For the next three decades, he served hockey as a coach, manager and selector and even heading the Himachal Pradesh State Hockey Association for two terms. The star lived a contended life in Una, Himachal Pradesh.

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