'INDIAN SOCCER SUCCEEDS -- IN FRANCE'. That was the headline in last Sunday's issue of the Indian Express (May 25). It mentioned the role of Indian-origin Vikash Dhorasoo in the team FC Lyon. Dhorasoo, as the spelling of his name suggests, was born in Mauritius. He was recently rated the 'best player of Indian origin in Europe' by my friend Arunava Chaudhuri's Indianfootball.com network <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Besides him, there's also Michael Chopra (Newcastle, and England U-15, U-16 and U-17 teams), Harpal Singh (Leads United, Bury, Bristol City, Bradford, English first division), Kiran Bechan (Ajax Juniors, Holland Under-18), Ebbie Kodiat (Boston Bulldogs, New England Revolution, All-Stars in Massachussetts, etc). Goans have also donned sporting colours for clubs and countries across the globe. Lenny Barretto told us about Karachi-born Wallis Mathias, who was the first player of Goan origin to play Test cricket (for Pakistan), Antao D'Souza (who played a few Test matches for that country), Peter Paul Fernandes (Karachi-born but the first Goan to play for the Indian Olympic Hockey team). Naguesh Bhatcar mentioned Goa-born Dilip Sardessai, who played Test cricket for India. Mervyn mentioned that Alban Fernandes played both hockey and cricket for Tanzania and later on was the Tanzanian cricket coach. Tariq Siddiqui (whom I recently missed meeting in Goa... I was leaving as he came in) mentioned Rocky D'Mello (Kenya), Derek Perera (? Canada). Tony Barros mentioned that Alban went on to captain East Africa in both cricket and hockey. He was also a hockey coach. There was the 12th man -- the late Armand "Chic" Saldanha who also represented Tanzania and East Africa in hockey, as Barros points out. Barros in New Jersey/New York added during a recent debate on Goanet: "And in Kenya, we had the off-spin bowler D'Cunha who played for Kenya; but five Goans at one time constituted the Uganda cricket team. They included Peter and Charlie D'Souza, and the famous East African all-rounder Lawrence Fernandes." "Although, we did not participate in Test cricket, all three East African teams played against world class teams including the MCC, West Indies, India and Pakistan. I must say that they fared very well given the fact that they were not professionals," said Barros. But, we seem to have very few names listed under football. Isn't that strange, considering that Goa has a fairly long tradition of football? (See the Vasco sports club interesting souvenir on the subject, brought out by journalist Francis Ribeiro and Noel Lima Leitao on the subject recently.) Can someone shed light on this? FN -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ########################################################################## _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.goanet.org/mailman/listinfo/goanet
