Catch them young seems to be the mantra of Hockey Simdega, the district level unit affiliated to Hockey Jharkhand.

It has planned to hunt talented children in rural areas and groom them as future hockey stars who would represent the country at international level.

“We plan to groom such children in such a manner that some of them can play for the country in the Olympics to be held in 2028, 2032 and 2036,” said Hockey Simdega president Manoj Konbegi, adding their intention was to continue, through these children, the tradition of Simdega gifting hockey Olympians.

They have asked over a dozen key members of the organisation to run small training centres at their respective villages with each one having about 25 selected children above 6 years who have potential. “They will also be brought to Simdega for two days every month so that they get exposure to astroturf stadium,” Konbegi informed, adding they would also organise half-yearly inter-centre tournaments for developing their skill.

They also planned to start locating from next month children in the age group of 9-12 years for grooming them at Simdega town so that they can play on astroturf from a young age and later get selected for government-run hockey centres, he further informed.

“We plan to bring in about 30 boys and girls who would finance their food while we will arrange their accommodation,” Konbegi replied when asked how they would finance it.

Budding hockey players attend a computer class. Manob Chowdhary

They would also organise a summer hockey camp with about a hundred budding players, both boys and girls, the same way so that they can showcase their talent at the district level and also improve their skill under good coaches.

“Simdega is known as the nursery of hockey that produced quite a few Olympians, both men and women, besides other players who represented the country at international tournaments,” Konbegi proudly said, emphasising their plan should help groom children who would hopefully qualify for the future Olympics.

The district administration was also helping a lot, he pointed out, adding a dozen stadiums have been built at different villages and another of international standard, besides the existing one, would also soon come up at Simdega town while coaches have also been appointed at 5 day-boarding hockey training centres located across the district.

“At present 16 boys and girls from Simdega are attending various national camps and we think their number should be doubled soon,” Konbegi sounded hopeful, saying the gloom that had descended during the pandemic-induced lockdown was slowly disappearing.

Besides training budding hockey players, they were also eager to help them study, he further said, adding they had already resumed computer training for them while online classes for spoken English and academic studies would also resume soon.

“We also plan to offer online classes to rural trainees for an hour everyday,” he further informed, adding the teachers would take classes from Simdega while their members would help rural children to attend those with their laptops.

Besides joining armed forces, playing hockey remains the only major scope for the local youths to earn a decent livelihood as a lot of talented players bagged good jobs,” he said, adding that was why they insisted the players also studied sincerely.