Singapore Hockey Federation

By Eddie dos Passos/Singapore Hockey Federation

The threat of a horrendous thunderstorm and dark clouds hovering over the Tanah Merah Country Club failed to dampen the enthusiasm of a troop of 128 die-hard hockey fans as they played their way through 18-holes at the club’s Tampines course to help out the future of the sport.

Guest of honour for the May 6th event was Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education, who as an advisor to the Singapore Hockey Federation (SHF) teed off the event alongside SHF president Annabel Pennefather Dillon.

Also in their foursome was Jessie Phua, president of Singapore Tenpin Bowling and Colonel. (ret) Gurcharan Singh, SHF vice president.

The fund raising event brought out some of the best recognized names in Singapore sport today with past double internationals (hockey and cricket) – Rex Martens, partnering father John, and Paramjit Singh, Tarlok Singh, Richard Gomez and Godfrey Roberts just to name a few.

These former sportsmen played alongside respected businessmen from the community and housewives teaming up with their lady friends. It was heartening to see old friends meeting up after a long time to come out for a day of golf all for a good cause.

The event took aimed at raising much needed funds for the game and its future and was followed up by an entertaining dinner gala at the Tanah Merah Country Club, Garden course.

There, players and attendees along with a table of current Singapore internationals were serenaded to live music by well known entertainer Ali Ahmad.

With Col. Gurcharan Singh adding to the evening with a splendid and entertaining speech, reminding us all that hockey and golf were played with similar types of balls and that some of the golfers’results were akin to cricket scores as some were hitting past ‘a century’ entailing laughter from the assembled group.

During the course of the dinner, Minister Shanmugaratnam made a speech in which he expressed his support for SHF’s initiative to bring back the glory days of Singapore hockey.

He described as realistic, the eight year plan rolled out by SHF which targets the men’s and women’s teams to be ranked within the top 16 teams in the world by 2013 and also called for the construction of a new hockey stadium with two synthetic turf pitches and supporting facilities to host major events.

Prizes were then awarded for the longest drive, best score and closest to the pin and was followed up by a lucky draw with donated gifts ranging from electronic items to kitchen equipment and even a flat screen 21-inch television set was given away.

The food, the small and cozy atmosphere was enjoyed by all with many promising to return should there be another similar event next year.

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