KARACHI: The YMCA gro­und has been restored to its original glory yet there remains a big difference between its past and present. While hundreds of players used to throng the sprawling ground each evening in the years gone by, now it’s totally empty.

The damage done caused to the city’s youth by encroaching the field for holding marriages and a circus two decades ago will take a long time to repair.

The 115-year old YMCA ground is not the only sports facility that has been encro­ached. There are a number of stadia that were misused by adopting shortcut means. They include National Stadium Car Parking, Abdul Sattar Edhi Hockey Stadium Car Parking, Railway Stadium, KHA Sports Complex, PSB Coaching Centre among others.

The back to back encroachments on playing fields of the metropolis seems to be a planned conspiracy to keep the youth away from healthy activities. This has led to deterioration which is evident from the graph of province that has fallen drastically.

“The Sindh Government has doled out Rs 95 million in two installments — Rs 50 million and Rs 45 million — to Commissioner Karachi who has supervised facelift of YMCA on apex court order,” YMCA sports secretary Babar Paul told Dawn.

Explaining salient features during a tour of the facilities alongside founding hockey coach Shabih Abbas, he said besides erecting iron grills by demolishing the walls and gates for visitors, a jogging track and changing rooms have been developed in addition to allocating space for a hockey ground.

While the athletics track has been removed by a jogging track, the relocated hockey field also needs a lot of improvement by injecting funds. The washrooms are also not operational which is a cause of concern.

The removal of the athletics field has raised many eyebrows and has saddened the athletes and officials. It has produced two fastest men of the country in John Permal and Ali Kamani in addition to 110m hurdler Mohammad Talib, international pole vaulter Arshad Saleem among others.

The new design has been prepared by architecture firm Arch Vision that includes a swimming pool, basketball and tennis courts, cricket nets, etc. in the second and third phase respectively but Babar said the the ambitious project needs enormous funding.

The YMCA served as a hub of sports for decades, both before partition and after independence. With exception of Sunday, hundreds of players of athletics, hockey, basketball, tennis, badminton, table tennis and martial arts used to throng the premises every afternoon to hone their skills under reputed coaches. Unfortunately, the legacy was completely destroyed in the last two decades.

The contribution of honest and dedicated YMCA officials namely George W. Das, Wilburn Bede, Zafar J. Shakti, chairman sports committee Sadiq Wahab Din, sports advisor Riaz Ahmed was notable. So did several honourary coaches including Shabih Abbas, Masroor Ali Khan, international Abid Hussain, Joel Andrews, Moha­mmad Khan, Ms Josphene Alexander who produced many talented players.

The YMCA shot into prominence by giving world record holder and penalty corner specialist Sohail Abbas, several goalkeepers to the National Hockey team namely Olympians Shahid Ali Khan, Mansoor Ahmed, Ahmed Alam, internationals Ejaz Khokhar and Ejaz Horani besides internationals Mumtaz Haider, Asif Zafar and Atif Aziz.

Shabih Abbas, who has seved as Director Sports of Habib Public School for about four decades is an unsung hero and deserves Pride of Performance for his meritorious services to the national game.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2021