CLUB hockey that was hallmark of Pakistan’s unprecedented rise in the world has vanished. Hockey fields in Karachi that were thronged by the youth every evening now present a deserted look, very sad indeed. Many of them have been encroached upon for commercial purposes, mainly wedding functions, despite mushroom growth of proper marriage venues across the metropolis.

The players used to remain busy round the year playing one tournament after the other besides travelling to different cities to feature in competitions.

The same breed of players gets an opportunity to prove their potential while featuring in annual inter-school hockey tournaments of the directorate of school education and board of secondary education Karachi.

The event that used to be contested fiercely by the competing teams has unfortunately lost its charm on three counts: bifurcation of provincial sports department from education, lack of interest by physical training instructors (PTIs) who don’t enter teams and lastly, the players’ interest has dipped as they have been deprived of sports quota in colleges at the time of admission due to implementation of the Centralised Admission Policy (CAP) few years ago.

To don school colour used to be a Herculean task for players owing to high-quality competitions. Both club and inter-school hockey used to help unearth budding players who were picked by colleges and later universities, including NED, and nurtured further. The club and school events also helped in developing a reservoir of talented players.

The system worked effectively for decades and yielded fruitful results until the sports quota in city colleges was done away under CAP.

Safdar Abbas was a grade VIII student in a local educational institution when he got the nod of PHF selectors. Similarly, Hasan Sardar was barely 22-23 years old when he caught the eye of PHF high-ups for an international event at Perth in 1979.

There were so many activities that the players couldn’t find time for socialising. They used to eat hockey, sleep hockey, discuss hockey and that was the reason of Pakistan’s performing par excellence in international competitions. Alas! All has turned upside down.

Believe it or not but it is a fact that only seven teams entered in this year’s inter-school hockey tournament held under the aegis of the directorate of school education of which one abstained, a source told Dawn.According to the information, the directorate has no funds for staging sports activities for thousands of students of government boys and girls primary, secondary and higher secondary schools of the city. There are over 600 government schools in Karachi alone besides 32 higher secondary schools. The directorate is responsible for staging sports activities for them. They charge Rs1,000 as entry fee from educational institutions who enter their teams in inter-school hockey tournament.

Meanwhile, private educational institutions come under the wings of separate directorate of private schools.

The board of secondary education conducts sports only for class IX and X students of government schools and they charge a compulsory nominal amount of Rs30 or 35 from every student with their enrolment forms.Such is the state of affairs that three parallel systems are enforced only to cater the needs of youth but can’t match the performance of yesteryears government schools and some private educational institutions.

People connected with the game still remember that hockey players of the Government Model School and Habib Public School, to name a few, were role models and quite a number of them have even reached zenith.

The city has witnessed phenomenal rise of individuals and institutions who have jumped into the business of organising inter-school and other sporting events from different platforms by charging hefty entry fee primarily aimed at repaying their debts. There’s no check on such ‘superfluous’ activities.

Revival of club and inter-school hockey is need of the hour by men of commitment and government-run institutions and the money meant for sports should be spent in the right direction as hockey is Pakistan’s national game.

Moreover, concrete efforts must be made in order to recover playing fields from encroachers.