Hope my Padma award will motivate youngsters: Zafar

Former Indian hockey captain Zafar Iqbal has been inundated with congratulatory calls and messages ever since news broke of the 1980 Olympic gold medalist’s selection for the Padma Shri award. Two hours before the official announcement Zafar got a call informing him he had won the award but instead of sharing it with friends and family, he kept it to himself thinking someone was up to some mischief.

“Initially I wasn’t sure if it was a prank or not because it has been many years since the Moscow Olympics. It was quite a gap. I didn’t even tell my wife because it would have been very embarassing if there had been no such announcement after all,” he says.

The gap Zafar has been talking about is 32 years to be precise and that was the last time since the Indian hockey team won an Olympic gold and several of Zafar’s teammates and even his proteges — he was India’s chief coach in 1993-94 — have recieved the award before him.

His inside-left partner Mohammad Shahid won the award in 1986 whilst Dilip Tirkey, one of his first wards, recieved the award in 2004. There is no rancour though in Zafar.

“It is an honour for me personally, but I take it as a recognition of hockey in the country and it’s glorious history. I will be more happy if it can motivate more youngsters to take to the sport,” Zafar told Sportline.

So many years later, it seems quite an irony as Zafar became a hockey player by chance. “As a youngster, I preferred playing football rather than hockey, and even represented my school in Aligarh in the sport. It was only when Proffessor Khan, who was president of the hockey club at the Aligarh Muslim University insisted I try hockey that I made the shift,” he says.

While Zafar is happy at the news of the award and reminisces the old days, he admits the future of hockey is far from bright for India. “The problem is that hockey isn’t a mass sport any longer. When I go out of my home, I more often than not see children playing cricket or football. Today the players are trying their best but it’s just that the pool of talent that existed in my time and before it, is missing. You hardly have any competition inside the country now,” he says.

According to Zafar, he had predicted the decline as far back as in 1980, even before the high of the Olympic sucess had not dimmed. “That year we toured Europe and also Argentina and I was amazed to see their set-up. While we were getting by on natural talent, other countries were building clubs and getting professionals. I remember I told The Indian Express, that in the future it would perhaps become hard for India to even qualify for the Olympics. At that time I was criticised but I stick to what I said. It is quite a bittersweet thing actually because I would have preferred to be proved wrong,” he says.