Dhanraj Pillay helping a local club to revive women’s hockey in Bengal

Kolkata, Sep 4: It is a story of the struggle for survival for a hockey club that was shut down long time back in Kolkata.

All Bengal Women’s Union, a club that used to participate in the state organised female hockey leagues in 1980s-90s, had to stop playing hockey due to lack of funds for one and a half decade.

In 2009, a Non-Government Organization (NGO) came forward and took over the club to resume playing hockey.

All Bengal Women’s Union again resumed participating in the state organised female hockey leagues in Kolkata. The team trains in Kolkata as well as at Mallikpur in South 24 Parganas, around an hour from Kolkata via train.

But as the NGO is not able to provide minimum financial support and the club has not yet been able to manage a proper training ground till date. They train on a cemented place which one-eighth the size of a hockey ground. Students, around 50 in number, are being provided the least amount of Tiffin after training.

The NGO doesn't have even the capacity to give hockey sticks, balls, boots and jerseys to the girls. The NGO has finally roped in one of the superstars in Indian hockey and he's former India skipper Dhanraj Pillay.

The former India international had sent all these infrastructural gears to the students of this club when he heard about the financial crisis of the NGO.

Along with Dhanraj, another former Indian international player Mir Ranjan Negi also came to All Bengal Women’s Union’s coaching center and inspired the young girl hockey players.

The chief coach of this club and coaching project, Paramjit Kaur Bhattacharya said, “We have been the winners in the state organized women’s hockey league this season. Several girls from our project have already represented senior Bengal team. Still, our mission is to teach hockey to these young girls and guide them to a level so that they can get jobs.”

Already a young girl hockey player from this club has got a government job.