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HOCKEY: A DECADE WITHOUT DAR – Newspaper

 


A decade has passed since the demise of Munir Dar, a member of Pakistan’s first-ever Olympic gold medal winning hockey team, in 1960. Widely recognized as the best right-back to represent Pakistan, Munir left for his heavenly abode on June 1, 2011.

I was in the Netherlands with the Dar Hockey Academy the day he died. As the name suggests, the academy was a brainchild of Munir Dar. The Dar Hockey Academy was about to play the opening game of its 2011 European tour when the sad news arrived. The academy officials wanted to cancel the match, but Munir’s son Taqueer, who was also president of Dar Hockey Academys, advised Pakistan to honor the commitment. After a minute of silence in memory of the late legend before the match, the academy team continued the game wearing black armbands.

Munir Dar lived a remarkable, rather enviable life. Born in Amritsar in 1936, young Munir moved to Lahore in 1947. In his new home, he discovered the hockey stick, which started his lifelong love affair.

Blessed with a strong, athletic physique, Munir showed all the attributes of a solid defender in the right wing position. He was also a great striker for penalty corners. All this quickly put him on the radar of the national selectors. Munir, 19, earned a spot at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

In Melbourne, Pakistan won their first Olympic medal in any discipline silver. Young Munirs’ performance in the final was memorable and after that there was nothing to worry about.

Munir caused a sensation at the 1958 Asian Games in Tokyo, Japan. He was instrumental in Pakistan’s 8-0 win against South Korea, which had just made headlines by limiting India, the undisputed king of hockey at the time, to a 2-1 win against them. Despite being the stronger side, India could only beat Korea by one goal. In the Pakistan match, he successfully converted a whopping five consecutive penalty corners, a feat never before achieved in international hockey and has only been equaled since.

Munir Dar, who passed away 10 years ago, was not only one of Pakistan’s most legendary hockey players. His legacy to the country’s hockey is still very much alive and his influence extended to many other sports

In the tournament, Munir scored eight goals on penalty corners, but his five against Korea made the difference. The 1958 Asiad hockey tournament was played on a single league basis. The match between Pakistan and India ended scoreless and the two sides ended in a tie. But Pakistan won the gold on goal difference, thanks in large part to their big win against the Koreans.

Two years later, Munir again featured in Pakistans winning gold at the Rome Olympics, ending India’s 32-year hegemony. He remained Pakistan’s first-choice until his retirement after the 1966 Asian Games, when he had the honor of leading the national team.

In three Olympic appearances he garnered a gold and two silver. In as many appearances at the Asian Games, Munir’s medal cabinet had two golds and one silver.

Before leaving the international scene, Munir had already groomed his younger brother, Tanvir Dar, as his successor. Tanvir, also a right-back, was a member of the Olympic gold medal winning team of 1968. He also reigned supreme at the inaugural World Cup in 1971, where he was the top scorer of the tournament, scoring eight goals for the victorious Pakistani side.

Dar’s success story continued and Munir’s eldest son Taqueer completed the unique family treble when he was part of the Pakistani team that won the country’s third and last Olympic gold medal to date in 1984.

His second son Taseer was a standby for those Olympics. It was just dirty politics that Taseer couldn’t put on the green shirt, as pundits found his penalty corner attack more powerful and accurate than any other Dars. All this had a discouraging impact on the youngest son Tafseer, who had also shown a lot of promise, to the extent that he decided to retire from hockey and turn his attention to cricket. Tafseer Dar played first-class cricket for a long time.

Munir also coached Pakistan’s senior and junior national teams in the 1970s and 1980s.

But hockey was only part of Munir Dars’ multifaceted personality. He had an eye for horses and owned several racehorses. His stable won many races at the Lahore Race Club.

Dar Sahib was also the founding chairman of the Pakistan Karate Federation and also served on the executive committee of the Pakistan Rugby Federation. He was a police officer by profession and was the chairman of the Police Sports Council from 1985 to 1995. His tenure is remembered as the golden decade of police sports. The police officers not only won the laurels at the national level, but also made Pakistan proud at the Asian and global level.

At the 1990 Asian Games, 400-meter hurdler and police officer Ghulam Abbas won the track and field gold for Pakistan after 16 years, not a single Pakistani has won since. Bodybuilders Yahya Butt and Mansoor Butt, also of the police, won the title Mr Asia. The Pakistan volleyball team also had a great performance from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s and continued to be a strong force at the Asian level. During that period, many police officers regularly won the selection in the national volleyball line-ups. Dar also played an important role in raising the Asian-style kabaddi police team. Again, quite a few members of the police squad represented Pakistan’s national squads, who won medals with the Asiads.

Blessed with an excellent memory, Dar was also a reservoir of stories from the sports world. Sports enthusiasts like me spent hours in his company and never got bored when he came out with interesting and informative stories from so many sports disciplines.

Returning to its discipline of hockey, under the direct supervision of Munir Dars, the police team won the national championships for the second time in 1993; the first was in 1960, when Munir himself was a member of the team.

The year 1994 saw Pakistani hockey for the last time on the world stage. The green shirts won the World Cup after 12 years and the Champions Trophy after 14 years. The police team provided five players in the national outfits for the two tournaments, which was more than the contribution of other departments.

Munir Dar was an institution in itself. Brash and boisterous, he never hesitated to call a spade a spade and was much feared by the country’s incompetent and failed sports administrators, who often had to face his wrath.

Hockey remained his first love all the time. He was very depressed to witness the continuous decline of Pakistani hockey. On Munir’s advice, his son Taqueer founded the Dar Hockey Academy in late 2006 to nurture young talent. Within a few years, the academy became the largest reservoir of hockey talent in the country, with its boys regularly appearing on all Pakistani national teams, both in the senior and junior teams.

19-year-old Munir Dar made his debut for Pakistan in 1956. Sixty-five years later, his legacy continues in the form of Pakistan’s premier hockey nursery. Whenever a boy from Dar Academy dons the coveted green shirt, Munir has to smile at him from there.g

The author can be reached at [email protected]

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 13, 2021

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