Stan Rayan: 2011

The Rangaswami Cup has been associated with India's National Hockey

Championship for six decades but when Hockey India’s new national

championship begins in Bhopal on Friday, it will be played without the

sport’s most prestigious trophy.

The tussle between Hockey India, the new apex body for the sport in

the country recognised by the world body FIH and the Indian Olympic

Association, and the Indian Hockey Federation which governed the sport

earlier, has virtually pushed the Rangaswami Cup out of the picture.

“It’s not the Rangaswami Cup this time,” said Mariamma Koshy, the

interim president of Hockey India, on Thursday evening. “This is our

first men’s national, we’re going for something new.”

The national championship without the Rangaswami Cup sounds a bit odd.

Like how football’s nationals would be without the Santosh Trophy.

Mumbai, which won the last national championship, the 63rd edition in

Bhopal, now holds the cup.

Interesting history

There is an interesting piece of history behind the Rangaswami Cup.

When the National Championship came to Chennai in 1951, the event did

not have a winner’s trophy. The Maori Shield, a memento presented by

the New Zealand Hockey Association to the wizards of Indian hockey

during their visit to that country in 1935, was the official trophy

that was given to the national champions in the mid 1940s but the

trophy was lost in the confusion of partition.

The Hindu's trophy

It was a period when India ruled world hockey, winning all the four

Olympic golds between 1928 and 1948, and the lack of a trophy in the

sport came to the notice of Kasturi Srinivasan, then the Editor of The

Hindu.

Mr Kasturi Srinivasan offered a handsome silver trophy, named in the

memory of S.Rangaswami, one of The Hindu’s finest editors and a fine

hockey player.

Had it been around, the Rangaswami Cup would have celebrated its

diamond jubilee this year.

Now, along with the missing trophy, hockey could lose a lot of its history.

With a new national championship coming into being, what will happen

to the event’s old records? Will a piece of the golden period of

Indian hockey, and its stars, be forgotten under the dust of history.

“We are keeping track of all the old players, we will also have a

history of Indian hockey and mention the different stages of changes,”

said Mrs Mariamma Koshy.
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Stan Rayan