Bala's boys and the Tamil school hockey dream

Free Malaysia Today

2 days ago

All in for the game — parents, coaches, and supporters pack the frame with the Rinching Estate Tamil School hockey team. At the back, in the white hat, stands 1975 World Cup hero K Balasingam, still leading from behind. (K Balasingam pic)
PETALING JAYA : While the argument rages over whether Malaysia should buy sporting glory by naturalising foreign-born athletes, in a quiet corner of Selangor, a different answer is unfolding.
It is one rooted in homegrown talent.
Far from stadium lights and national training centres, the Star Hockey Academy, made up mostly of Rinching Estate Tamil School boys and girls, is proving that champions can still be grown from scratch.
That is, if someone cares enough to try.
K Balasingam, 73, a hero of Malaysia's 1975 Hockey World Cup squad, has spent years planting the seeds of a hockey revival among Tamil school children.
For him, it's not just about sport, but giving the next generation the same opportunities hockey once gave him.
Balasingam's own journey began in 1960s Ipoh, when a stick, a ball, and boundless energy could take a boy far.
Today, he's bringing that same spirit to schools with neither money nor facilities for hockey.
His mission is simple: keep the sport alive by making sure children can play, learn, and dream.
Often dipping into his own savings, he provides sticks, balls, and coaching. There's also the boys Under-12 K Balasingam Cup for Tamil schools in Selangor.
The results are showing. The Star hockey academy has burst onto the Malaysian Junior Hockey League, making their debut last month in the boys' division two.
Parents, too, are getting involved, staying after work to watch training or pooling money for equipment.
'It's not just hockey,' said head coach Gopal Krishnan. 'It's discipline, confidence, and friendship.'
Balasingam knows talent can bloom anywhere if nurtured early.
But many Tamil schools face shrinking enrolments, small budgets, and limited sports programmes.
'Sport teaches teamwork, speed, and thinking under pressure,' he said. 'For our kids, it can open doors — scholarships, state teams, even the national squad.'
On naturalised athletes, he is clear: 'If we invest in our own children, we won't need to look elsewhere. The talent is here. It always has been.'
For him, the joy of seeing a child master a pass or score a goal outweighs any imported glory.
The seeds he planted are already sprouting.
The Tamil school near Semenyih has produced players for sports schools, the national Under-18 squad, and possibly, for the first time, the junior national team heading to December's Junior World Cup in India.
Easwaran George (red and yellow) — from Rinching Estate's schoolyard to Malaysia's junior front line at the Murugappa Gold Cup in Chennai last month. (K Balasingam pic)
Enter Easwaran
Easwaran George first picked up a stick in Rinching's dusty schoolyard in 2015.
Balasingam spotted his promise, sponsored his gear, and kept him in the game through secondary school.
Years ago, Pahang's Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah asked Balasingam to nurture at least one Indian player for Malaysia.
'I promised him I would. Easwaran is that boy,' he said with quiet pride.
Easwaran first swung a stick at eight in Rinching Estate. Last month, he was a right-side attacking threat for Malaysia's juniors at the Murugappa Gold Cup in Chennai.
Two other Rinching products are also on the national radar. Thanesh Muniandy, from Anderson Sports School in Ipoh, represented Malaysia in the U18 Asia Cup last month.
He is a second-generation player from the Star Hockey Academy, along with Dheeressh Gunaseelan, who's in the Bukit Jalil Sports School — proof the programme has staying power.
Four faces, one legacy: Rinching Estate products Dheeressh Gunaseelan (left), Thanesh Muniandy, and coaches Gopal Krishnan and Kalithas Subramaniam. Proof the pipeline is alive and scoring. (K Balasingam pic)
A royal push
The seeds were planted in 2016, when Sultan Abdullah, then Tengku Mahkota Pahang and president of the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC), asked entrepreneur Radha Krishnan Nair:
'Where are all the Indian players who used to dominate national, state, and club teams in the 70s and 80s?'
Radha Krishnan, then an MHC vice-president, replied that the answer lay in Tamil schools.
The Sultan's instruction was simple: 'Do what you have to do. You have my support.'
Soon, the Malaysian Indian Sports Cultural Foundation (MISCF) launched a grassroots programme to introduce hockey in rural Tamil schools across several states.
From that came an all-Indian MISCF-UFL team in the Malaysian Junior Hockey League, finishing seventh and sixth in 2016 and 2017.
Radha Krishnan spent RM150,000 of his own money each season to keep it going before costs became unsustainable.
'I felt great satisfaction seeing Indian boys playing hockey, and even happier when some made their state Sukma teams,' he said.
K. Balasingam (nearest camera) cuts out an Indian raid in the 1975 World Cup semi-final. He cherishes that team's heroics but his Tamil school boys and girls might be his proudest win yet. (K Balasingam pic)
Rinching's rise
If Radha Krishnan opened the door, Balasingam has kept it wide open.
Under coaches Gopal and Kalithas Subramaniam, Rinching has become a Tamil school hockey powerhouse. Six of its boys are now in sports schools.
'It's one of the best Tamil schools in hockey,' said Balasingam. 'Two boys here have the potential to make the national senior team.'
His drive comes from lived experience. 'I came from a poor family and couldn't afford sticks or shorts. Friends helped me. Now it's my turn.'
As a former right-half in the 1975 World Cup semi-finalist team, a feat still unmatched, he knows what grassroots work can achieve.
Beyond nostalgia
Step into his Kelana Jaya office and you enter a treasure trove of that golden era: photographs, clippings, mementos — and the Omega gold watch given by then prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein to the '75 squad.
The watch gleams, but his eyes light up most when he talks about Rinching's training pitch or the first time an estate boy wore Malaysia's colours.
'Yes, I'm proud of 1975. But I'm prouder of what these kids are doing now,' he said. 'We can't keep talking about the past and do nothing for the future.'
That future, he insists, must be built from the bottom up.
'Naturalisation might give quick results, but you don't build a sports culture that way. You build it in places like Rinching.'
The bigger picture
Indians were once the backbone of national hockey. In the 1970s and 80s, their stickwork and flair dominated state and club teams.
Today, they are almost absent at the top level.
Balasingam's quest is not only about medals. It's about reconnecting young Indians with a heritage of excellence and giving them a way out of social and economic limits.
'Every sport needs a strong grassroots system. Without it, we're just borrowing glory,' said Radha Krishnan, now president of the Malaysian Association of Dodgeball.
Wisdom meets ambition: K Balasingam clasping hands with Malaysian juniors before their clash with Indian Oil Corp at the Murugappa Gold Cup in Chennai. (K. Balasingam pic)
From Rinching to Chennai
In July, Balasingam's grassroots journey came full circle.
Invited as guest of honour by Murugappa Group chairman MM Murugappan, he attended the Murugappa Gold Cup in Chennai, the same city where his father's long, perilous journey began.
His father, from Thanjavur, joined Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army, endured forced labour in Burma, and eventually settled in Ipoh, where Balasingam and his brother Rajan grew up.
The boys borrowed sticks, trained on rough grounds, and made the national team.
Watching Easwaran, a boy from an estate school, take the field in Chennai as part of Malaysia's junior team, the circle seemed complete.
'This is why I keep doing it,' he said. 'One player, one opportunity, can change everything.'