Three meetings and a press conference marked the last day of July at Olympic Bhawan in New Delhi from where adhoc committee on hockey functions nowadays. First was informal meeting between IOA officials and SB Roy, brother of Subrato Roy, whose company Sahara is current sponsors of senior and junior teams. GB Roy is presently President, Bengal Hockey, Association.

Second was between Leisure Sports Management people and the adhoc committee members. Quite possibly the issue of conducting this year’s Premier Hockey League figured. There is no official communication as to the details of discussion.

Third one was a meeting under the banner Future of Indian Hockey. Mostly former players gave their comment on present scenario and suggestions for future. They were also asked to give their plan for the future, including names for coaches. Other than former players, Abhijit Sarkar, who is corporate communication head of Sahara Pariwar, a stick manufacturer from Jalandhar, journalist Anupam Ghulati, AK Bansal, Bhopal Hockey Association president Guffran-e-Azam, Shakeel Qureshi, LSM group people and others were present.

The former Olympians from 1948 hero Nandy Singh to Hyderabad Junior Asia Cup hero Gurbaj Singh, about 30 of them were there. Others include Harbinder Singh, Ajit Pal Singh, Ashok Kumar, Dhanraj Pillay, Ashish Ballal, AB Subbaiah, MK Kaushik, Jallaluddin Rizvi, Harcharan Singh, Gurbux Singh, MP Ganesh, BP Govinda, Dilip Tirkey, Prabhjot Singh, Zafar Iqbal, Munir Sait, Tushar Khandkar, RS Bhola,

The item of the day was the press conference at the same Olympic Bhawan. It was heavily crowded, what with about 15 television channels and 30 print media persons. The heavy turn out of media was because of two things, first they got wind of Aslam’s sack, secondly, they expected chief coach to be announced.

Most of the above mentioned players, Md. Aslam, Convener or the Adhoc Committee, its members Randhir Singh and Rajiv Mehta were on the dais.

MP Ganesh first made a presentation. It was followed by brief speech of players. Jagbir started, followed by Tushar, Nandy Singh, Ajit Pal, Kaushik.

Midway through the press conference Kalmadi announced henceforth Ajit Pal will be chairman of the Selection Committee replacing Aslam Sher Khan. Probably knowing the development in advance, Aslam did not turn up either for the players’ meetings or for the press conference.

It would have been nice had a press release giving details of what players spoke were given out, therefore gathering news was left to individual journalists.

Pic shows Olympians Jallaluddin, Zafar Iqbal, BP Govinda and Dhanraj Pillay going through the latest Hockey Year Book newsletter.