KARACHI CHRONICLE: decline in sporting activity

We are so busy playing Taliban-Taliban that we have ignored healthy sports like athletics, badminton, hockey, tennis, squash and football, to name a few of the sporting pursuits at which Karachiites once excelled. Evidence of the decline was witnessed in the poor performance of the city's athletes in the 12th Sindh Games recently held in Larkana.
Regrarded as the provincial Olympics, the Sindh Games were held in 24 disciplines for men and 11 for women. Karachi dominated in 15 of the men's events and seven of the women's events. Thus it won the overall Moenjodaro trophy, but that is not proof of a vibrant sporting scene in the metropolis.
Karachi suffered the worst defeat in men's athletics, badminton, hockey and tennis, while the loss in women's hockey was surprising. Karachi did no win a single gold in the track and field events. Sukkur topped the list with eight gold, one silver and four bronze medals. Host Larkana won 5-4-2 and Hyderabad 3-4-4. Karachi with 0-5-4 managed to beat only Mirpurkhas which had 0-1-1 medals.
The defeats rather than the wins or the Moenjodaro trophy define the state of sports in Karachi. Sukkur shocked Karachi winning the gold in men's badminton. By far the most shameful debacle was the loss of the gold in men's hockey. Karachi is, or was, the city which produced legendary national hockey players who won Olympic gold and the Champions Trophy. Is this the city that was defeated in hockey by Larkana? The tennis gold was wrested from Karachi by Hyderabad.
Is Karachi the city that sent Shahnaz Saigol to the Wimbledon? Is this the city of Saeed Hai the tennis star after whom a road has been named in Bahadurabad? As far as I know, it is the only road in Karachi named after a sportsman. It was also surprising that Karachi lost the gold to Sukkur in women's hockey, but this is overshadowed by the debacles in the men's events listed above.
It is the futile to blame the weather, the timing of the Sindh Games and the mismanagement by the organisers for the poor show by Karachi because as far as these things are concerned the odds were even for all participants. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Karachi itself. For example, you do not suddenly go from producing hockey legends to producing hockey dunces who probably do not know the basics of the sport, which is evident from the fact that they lost to a paltry team like Larkana.
The truth is that, except for cricket, the entire sports infrastructure of the city is in shambles. The cinder track of the Railway Ground was the perfect running track anywhere in the country, but that is now in total deterioration. The track in Karachi University ground was also scientifically laid; today it has rubble and weeds. The Sports Complex lacks a proper track.
There is just a levelled field, which may be good enough for holding school sports Days, for which purpose it is used more often than for training athletes. Hockey Club was the first stadium to acquire the astro turf which changed the way hockey is played. It later acquired two more artificial turfs laid outside the stadium. Today these places serve as venues for weddings.
The KMC Sports Complex on Kashmir Road had the most beautiful, state-of-the-art squash complex where the legendary Jahangir Khan was discovered: a young lad whose facial hair had not yet sprouted and who did not even have proper shoes.
Even before he graced the championship court, he drew a crowd of audience who stood outside the fibreglass window of the squash court to watch mesmerised, fully aware that we had a world class player in Jahangir. The complex now looks like a graveyard of squash.
Every major school once boasted a tennis court which also served as an openair badminton court, a role otherwise played by the school assembly hall. There were a number of clubs devoted to tennis exclusively. They have disappeared. I have not been recently to the KMC tennis court in the old city, but, judging from the fact the tennis tournaments are not held here anymore, one assumes the courts are either in a poor state or they have been gobbled up by the land mafia.
Parks and playing fields for the public that proliferated the city and were always included in the development plan of the new residential colonies devolved into places for Juma prayers and gradually either a mosque was built or the land was carved up by the land mafia to build houses. Children had no choice but to play on the streets and the lanes, which is suitable for a game of cricket but hardly for any other type of sport.
Lyari was and still is the hub of football in Pakistan. World class footballers like Abdul Ghafoor also known as Pakistan's Pele, Hussain Killer, Captain Umer and Ali Nawaz were products of Lyari. The area still boasts over 150 registered football clubs but that does not mean there are 150 fields. These clubs play in the streets of congested places like the jurisdiction of Thana Baghdadi.
There is, of course, the 18,000-capacity CDGK Stadium which is more of a monument to Lyari's past glory in the game than a place were matches are held. The stadium is under-utilised while thousands of members of the registered football clubs play on the streets.
The Sindh Sports Minister Dr Muhammad Ali Shah, if asked to comment on the poor state of the sports in Karachi is likely to point to the law and order deterioration, to the shortage of funds and the lack of sports in school and college curriculums.
There has never been ideal sports conditions in Karachi. Lyari was always a hot bed of civil evils; it isn't some fancy squash complex that produced Jahangir Khan; legendary hockey players like Anwar Ahmed Khan didn't own a hockey stick of proper weight while Hanif Khan did not even own a hockey and had to borrow one from his older brothers.
The reason for the deterioration is that there is no money in sports. I do not mean money for the players, that was never available. Sports used to be exploited by organisers who made hay from joy trips abroad, from organising sports and pocketing the revenue from the sale of tickets and advertisements, as well as kept the lion's share of government sports allocations for their personal benefit.
But these self-servers could prosper only if there was sports, so they for their own gain encouraged sports. That breed of organiser is dead. Nobody now has any reason to promote sports in Karachi. I never knew I would live long enough to regret the passing of these brazen sports exploiters.