The statement of the federal minister for sports that though the PHF has been getting money off and on from the government for the promotion of hockey it has failed to deliver positive results. This statement tantamount to an indictment of all those who had been at the helm of affairs of Pakistan Hockey Federation in one capacity or the other since 1980s, to be more precise, when the rot seems to have started setting in our hockey.
The nosedive in hockey was not palatable for the hockey fans of this country because we were in the saddle since 1952 Helsinki world Olympic Games where we had won the bronze medal. Our quest for the gold medal was crowned with success 8 years later when we won gold medal in the Rome world olympics in 1960. We had won silver medal in between in the 1956 world olympics games played in Australia. We continued to blaze a trail in many world and Asian olympic games after that, including almost all leading international hockey tournaments where our hockey team invariably reached the victory stand .
It is worth pointing out that our nearest rival during these years was India. No European or Australian hockey team could hold a candle to our hockey eleven . After 1990, however, there is an altogether a different story to tell. For a fairly long time now we haven’t seen the likes of Hamidi, Waheed, Naseer Bunda, Anwaar Ahmad Khan, Habib Ali Kiddie, Matiullah, Samiullah, Hasan Sardar, ShahNaz, Hayat, Zakauddin, Munir Dar, Atif, Ghulam Rasool, Tanweer Dar, Asad Malik, Noor Alam, Manzoor-ul-Hasan and Rashid junior, to mention a few.
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