I want India at Olympics: Meredith

Andrew Meredith is keen and eager that the Indian hockey team qualifies for the London Olympics.

The 39-year-old coach of the Mumbai Marines (franchise team in the World Series Hockey) said at the Mumbai Hockey Association-Mahindra Stadium here on Tuesday that he developed a passion for hockey watching many matches between India and Australia in the 1980s.

“Things changed for India (placed 12th) at the 1986 World Cup in London. I want India at the London Olympic Games where they will have good support from the large Asian community.”

Meredith has enjoyed much success being on the coaching staff of Germany’s gold medal winning teams at major events such as the Champions Trophy (Kuala Lumpur, 2007), World Cup (Mönchengladbach 2006) and the Olympic Games (Beijing 2008).

After three training and practise sessions of the Mumbai Marines here Meredith said that the WSH is a unique concept in which players of different cultures would get an opportunity to play together.

“I don’t agree with the opinion that if India qualify for the Olympics the players’ would be distracted by playing in WSH. It will be beneficial to the Indian team.”

Touching upon the coaching style he said: “Since players in the league would be multi-cultural the coaching needs to be different. I can take some technical aspects from Germany and try to implement it.

“But the players should not be burdened with too many ideas. It’s important to see how they shape up with a schedule of 16 games (including knock out) in six weeks.”