The International Hockey Federation (FIH) was looking to expand the global exposure of the game through introducing new competitions under its own organisation. The Junior Hockey World Cup was introduced six months after the introduction of the Hockey Champions Trophy. France hosted the first tournament and the trophy was called the Roger Danet Challenge Cup named after the President of FIH Roger Alain Danet.
The 1979 Hockey Junior World Cup was the first edition of the Hockey Junior World Cup organised by the FIH for national teams of players under the age of 21. The tournament was hosted in Versailles, France from 23 August to 2 September 1979. Pakistan won the inaugural tournament defeating West Germany 2–0 in the final.
The JWC is a spectacle of new talent. This is the perfect platform for young players to unleash their raw skill onto the international hockey scene.
And indeed it has served Malaysia as platform for our national players from the inaugural tournament.
Five countries have dominated the event’s history. Germany is the most successful team, having won the tournament six times followed by Argentina and India, having won the tournament two times. Australia and Pakistan have each won the tournament once.
Malaysia’s best finish is fourth on three occasions (1979, 1982, 2013) out of 11 appearances out of 12 tournaments held so far. Malaysia did not compete in 1997.
Come December (5th to 16th), will be the fourth time Malaysia will be hosting the tournament at the Bukit Jalil Hockey Stadium, after the first time when it hosted hosted the second edition of the tournament in 1982 at the then brand new Tun Razak Hockey Stadium at Jalan Duta in Kuala Lumpur, which then was the country’s first ever artificial pitch (astroturf).
The cities of Kuala Lumpur (1982), Ipoh (1989) and Johor Bahru (2009) – co-hosted with Singapore – had hosted the second, fourth and ninth editions of the event respectively.
This (special) section is specially dedicated to the Junior World Cup tournament, where we will be carrying a series of articles related to Malaysian team players and officials who have been involved in the tournaments since the inaugural tournament in 1979 in France, on their thoughts, the impact of the tournament on Malaysian hockey and the players themselves.
Today we begin the series with an interview with Datuk R. Yogeswaran, the coach of the first Malaysian Junior World Cup team in 1979. Yogeswaran himself is an ex-national player and Olympian.
VETERAN HOCKEY COACH, YOGES BELIEVES JUNIORS WILL GO FAR
Former national player and coach Datuk R. Yogeswaran, may have been retired for years now from the game of hockey that he loves and adores so much, but the octogenarian is still as sharp and alert as he follows the game with enthusiasm and a very keen interest especially when it comes to the national side, be it the senior team or the junior side.
As the 2023 Men’s FIH Hockey Junior World Cup is just around the corner in early December (5th to 16th), Yogeswaran, 83, a former teacher, remembers the junior squad that he coached to fourth place at the 1979 Junior World Cup in Paris, France with love, fondness and admiration.
“I was close to that group of boys that made up the 1979 Junior World Cup squad from the time they were about fifteen years-old. At the time, I had a free hand in handling and managing the squad, there was no interference from the association (Malaysian Hockey Federation). I was the head coach and my assistants were the late Mohamad Sidek Othman and Lawrence Van Huizen (Stephen Van Huizen’s father).
“And we had a good team doctor in Dr Ronnie Yeo, all of whom helped a great deal in the making and building of such a great team.
“As a team we were a proper, real team in the sense that we did things together not just on but off the field, where lived together (in Kampung Pandan Sports Complex), we ate together, we helped one another and looked out for each other, and we even prayed together albeit in our own way according to our respective faiths, such as just before having meals. The camaraderie between all of us was very good, and remember that at the time these were young boys just after school.
“That team did well in France in 1979 because they believed in themselves, they trained very hard, and they had a strong spirit of togetherness as a team,” said Yogeswaran, who is the man responsible for introducing indoor hockey in the country back in the late seventies.
Yogeswaran recalled that he handpicked the players for the 1979 Junior World Cup squad from ‘Kem Bakat’ (talent camps) for under-15s, which was held in each and every state and he was the one who headed this project in 1975, four years prior to the Junior World Cup in Paris where be led the team to a fourth place finish.
From the start, Yogeswaran believed in his players and deep down he knew that the group of youngsters that he had recruited had the potential to go the distance and in his own words, ‘do wonders’ on the field.
“I think that, that team of ours that played at the 1979 JuniorWorld Cup was one of the best teams that our country ever had. Being a teacher, I was not only coaching them, but I was teaching them about hockey. I was educating them, in the principles of hockey, what the game of hockey is all about, because I believe that once they the players are on the field, they had to stand on their own, as their coach, I was there to help to guide them, but on the field they were on their own.
“If they got into a crisis situation on the field, they had to be smart and clever enough to know which principles to use and apply to be able to come out of tough and trying situations, and this was what differentiated them from the rest.
“ It was part of their lifelong education and that was how I judged them as to how good they were as players, as I observed how they got themselves out of situations, and that is the mark of a good player, one who is a thinking player,” said Yogeswaran, who played for Malaysia from 1960 to 1969.
Yogeswaran was a seasoned and experienced player himself who played in two Asian Games (1962 in Jakarta where the senior team won their first bronze medal when he was just 21-years-old, and then in 1966 in Bangkok). He retired from playing in 1969 after returning from the Mexico Olympics the previous year.
Yogeswaran revealed that throughout his involvement in the game of hockey, be it as a player or a coach, he has always stressed and inculcated good values and traits to those around him, especially the players, because of what happened to him in his early teens that changed his life forever.
“From an early age, when I was coming up as a player, I lost my father in 1954 when I was just fourteen years-old, so he never got to see me play all the way to the international stage where I represented the country. This is what drove me to succeed and to do my very best in just about anything and everything that I did, which I duly taught and inculcated to all the players that I coached and nurtured,” he shared.
Yogeswaran said that like every other Malaysian hockey fan, he will be rooting for the national junior side come early December when the tournament begins, and he hopes to see the national junior side go the distance and do the country proud on home soil.
“We have achieved fourth placing at the Junior World Cup about three to four times, with the first being in 1979 in Paris, France. Coming fourth in an international tournament, even at junior level is nothing alien to us. We have done well over the years, come December when we host the tournament, with home advantage, we should, we must do well, but we must not take our opponents lightly as they too will be going all out to win and to do well for themselves.
“I hope that the team, the players, have developed their game to a level whereby they are able to not just play against their opponents, but play with them.
Then they will be able to have the edge over their opponents because they will able to learn their opponents style of play and their tactics and counter them.
“My involvement in the game as a player, a coach and an advocate of the game for more than six decades. I am a firm believer that we must not crumble or get nervous but overcome the last few minutes of the game when the odds are stacked against us. Especially during crucial stages, as it will mean a lot in terms of progressing and advancing to the next stage of a tournament. And I hope that our current junior team can excel in this area,” he said.
