Indian Hockey's greatest center forward - Balbir Singh Senior

Time is flying, isn’t it? I hope it has been a good year so far for sport fans. If the tennis fans enjoyed the Australian Open and hockey fans enjoyed the Hockey India League, the cricket crazy in India have celebrated Indians mauling the visiting Kangaroos. But dear readers, I am one die-hard hockey fan from India and centre forward is my favorite position. It’s a position where we receive the ball from one of the wings near the attacking ‘D’, run it up and complete the formality of scoring a goal. In this short write-up of mine, I’d like to narrate a brief story of one of the greatest center forwards of hockey, Balbir Singh Dosanjh (Balbir Singh Senior).

It was on the 10^th of Oct, 1924, four years before the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928 that this legend was born in Punjab’s Haripur Khalsa.

Early Life

Inspired by the wizardry of hockey’s immortal Dhyan Chand, Balbir the senior started playing hockey in that center–forward position which his idol Dhyan Chand played. They say, it doesn’t matter if one has talent, it only matters if it gets recognition. And yes, fortunately, this man’s talent saw light very soon. It was Harbail Singh, the then coach of Khalsa College hockey team, that noticed our legend and persuaded him to move from Sikh National College, Lahore to Khalsa College, Amritsar. Five years before the Indian Independence in 1947, Balbir did heed the good advice and moved to Amritsar. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Soon, he was seen captaining the Punjab University team that won the All India Inter University title in 1943, 1944 and 1945. In fact, this man was the member of the last undivided Punjab team that was the National Champion in 1947. After India’s partition, his family moved from Lahore to Ludhiana and captained the Punjab Police team from 1941 to 1961.

Impeccable work at the Olympics

Balbir’s first taste of Olympics was in London in 1948. His first match for India as an Olympian was against the Argetinians. In what was a goal fest, Balbir scored 6 goals, including a hat-trick. And later, in the first encounter against the hosts Great Britain, he scored 2 goals as independent India won its first gold medal when the final scoreline read India 4-0 Great Britain. Four years later, the Olympics shifted to Helsinki and the year was 1952. This flag-bearer of India in the opening ceremony scored a hat-trick against Great Britain and put the team at a touching distance of yet another gold medal with the final against the Netherlands. It was then in that final game that Balbir created a timeless record. In India’s 6-1 win, our legend scored a whopping 5 goals, which still remains the Olympic record of most goals by an individual in an Olympic final. On an astounding note, he scored 9 of India’s total goals. The result – a gold medal to the nation. However, there were a few erratic reports in the media saying that the record for the most number of goals in an Olympic final go to Dhyan Chand for his 6 goals in the 8-1 demolition over Germany at the 1936 Olympics. However, Major Dhyan Chand in his autobiography titled “Goal!” wrote as follows.

“When Germany was four goals down, a ball hit Allen’s pad and rebounded. The Germans took full advantage of this and made a rush, netting the ball before we could stop it. That was the only goal Germany would score in the match against our eight, and incidentally the only goal scored against India in the entire Olympic tournament. India’s goal-getters were Roop Singh, Tapsell and Jaffar with one each, Dara two and myself three.”

As time went by, in 1956, the games moved to Melbourne down under in Australia. This time around, Balbir suffered a few injuries after the first game against Afganistan in which he netted 5 goals. However, he played the semi final and final and played a pivotal role in India winning yet another gold medal.

Life after the Olympics

In 1957, Balbir became the first recipient of the Padma Shri in sports category. He was the coach of the National team that won bronze medal at the 1971 Hockey World Cup. He was the manager of the 1979 Hockey World Cup winning team. In fact, Balbir was also a member of the team that won silver at Asian games in 1958 and 1962.

After having been adjudged as the ‘best Sikh hockey player’ and receiving the award from the former member of the International Olympic Committee and former president of the Indian Hockey Federation, Ashwini Kumar, this octogenarian said, “I am a secular and a Nationalist to the core. So I was not convinced about the idea of having a list of players on the basis of religion. But slowly I realized that it would do good to the image of Indian hockey and I agreed”.

Having said all the above, I’d like to end this write-up briefing some his notable achievements.

Balbir Singh was Chief Coach and Manager of the five medal winning Indian National Teams at World Level Tournaments:

Gold Medal Kuala Lumpur World Cup, 1975.

Bronze Medal Barcelona World Cup, 1971.

Gold Medal Ahmedabad International, 1962.

Bronze Medal Amsterdam Champions’ Trophy, 1982.

Silver Medal Melbourne Esanda Cup, 1982.

Balbir Singh was the Flag Bearer of the Indian Contingent at:

Olympic Games, Helsinki ——————–1952.Olympic Games, Melbourne —————– 1956.

Balbir lit the Sacred Flame at the Opening Ceremonies:

New Delhi Asian Games ——————- 1982.

He received the Indian National Award Padma Shri in 1957.

Guest Of Honour at many international events including:

- Olympic Games, Moscow — 1980.- World Cup, London ——— 1986.- Champions’ Trophy, Berlin – 1995.

He was adjudged Indian Sportsman of the Century in an India-wide opinion poll in 1982.

Balbir served in the Punjab Police and later the Punjab Sports where he retired as Director & Head of the Department.

Balbir Singh has four children and seven grandchildren. He has just published his second book, The Golden Yardstick, a technical manual for testing and improving hockey skills. His first book, an autobiography “The Golden Hat Trick” was published in 1977.

He spends part of each year in India and the rest in Canada.

As an avid fan of Hockey, he takes a keen interest in the sport and loves to communicate with other Hockey Fans.