Farabi Govt Boys Secondary School beat City District Govt School Azeem Pura 4-0 to clinch the Tanveer Dar Memorial Inter-school Hockey Tournament 2008.

The tournament, which went on for 10 days (Aug 20-30) at the Hockey Club of Pakistan, Karachi, saw 13 school teams, namely, City District Govt School Azeem Pura, City School Prep Boys PECHS, CAA Model Public School No 2 Airport, Shah Abdul Latif School (Steel Town), City District Govt School SITE Town ST-2, Federal Govt Public School Karachi Cantt, Ghulaman-i-Abbas School, Army Public School (COD), BVS Parsi High School Saddar, Farabi Govt Boys Secondary School, Qamar-i-Bani Hashim School Malir, Govt Model High School Mirpur Khas and Pak Railway School Karachi Cantt, fight it out for top honours.

Farabi School`s tally of four in the final includes contribution by centre-forward Mohammad Jameel, who scored two goals, and one each by the rest of their forward line comprising Noman Sadiq and Samad Khan. The winners were leading by one-nil at interval so there was still a chance for Azeem Pura to come back into the game. But the second half saw Farabi piling up three more, leaving no hope for their opponents to catch up. The match was supervised by Tasdeeq Hussain and Faisal Ismail.

Meanwhile, drama before the third place match led to Shah Abdul Latif School (Steel Town) getting the bronze without even trying. Ghulaman-i-Abbas School, their opponents, refused to play the match, enabling Shah Abdul Latif School to get a walkover. “They had lost rather badly to Azeem Pura in the semi-final, the score being 6-1, and were in no mood to tolerate insult to injury so they just backed out making the excuse that they were missing some of their valuable players,” said organising secretary Qadeer Ahmed.

While speaking at the closing ceremony, former Olympian and chairman of the organising committee Hasan Sardar said, “The tournament provided us all with a chance to witness some beautiful hockey. It feels good to know that there is no shortage of talent in Pakistan, which if used to good purpose, would give us many fine hockey players in the future.”

The prize distribution ceremony saw the winners and runner-up lifting their respective trophies amid much cheer and celebration. Pak Railway School Karachi Cantt`s goalkeeper Mohammad Shafiq was declared the “Best Player” of the tournament. The “Fair Play” trophy went to Qamar-i-Bani Hashim School Malir. New hockey sticks were also distributed among the best players.

The Tanveer Dar Memorial Inter-school Hockey Tournament organised by the Nawab Ali XI Hockey Club in collaboration with Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) is now in its seventh year thanks to the untiring efforts of people like Hasan Sardar who donates lacs of rupees from his own pocket for the project every year in the name of bringing up hockey at the grassroots level, technical director Talat Mehmood, organising secreary Qadeer Ahmed and DOE Sports CDGK Zaibunnisa Pathan.