10. Hilary Fernandes

Imust confess: From the first moment I saw him play, I was an instant fan (without misshaping my integrity as a journalist), someone whose admiration of the player and the man has never faded. As a young boy, I never held a hockey stick in my hand. Unlike that other mob, Dr Ribeiro Goan School,

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Hilary Fernandes at his deadliest.

St Teresa’s Boys School in Eastleigh was not big on sport. A one-armed student Kersi Rustomji cut the grass in a very large square patch and fashioned a cricket pitch and I think cricket died after his class graduated high school. There was another block where the grass was occasionally cut to create a soccer field of sorts and was played on now and again. Dr Ribeiro’s, on the other hand, was blessed with some of the best sports girls and boys in a large variety of sports.

Hence, when I joined the Daily Nation as a Sports Reporter I had to learn several sports in a hurry. Two men who spent many, many hours discussing, debating, arguing various points of hockey were Hilary Fernandes and former club player and international umpire Oscar D’Souza. I remain indebted.

Some folks used to say in complete admiration: Hilary was probably born with a hockey stick in his hand. Yet others would swear that he was blessed with one of the finest attacking hockey brains anywhere. In his time, he was the headline behind many a Kenya, Sikh Union and Railway Goan Institute win. As a young journalist who was privileged to see him play, it was easy to see why he was more often than not the headline: he was the creative genius who fashioned goals for others to score or scored himself.

Crouched low to the ground with the hockey stick seemingly attached to the ball, Hilary looked like a lioness or a cheetah on a kill and he applied the finish to his own “kill” (scoring goals) with same finesse the two animal species are famous for. Yet, the label most suited for him was “the wizard of dribble”. His wrong-footed opposing defenders almost with every attack Kenya mounted on

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the opposition.

He was also a crafty devil. If there was no clear shot at goal available, with greatest of calm, the innocence of a new born babe imprinted on his face and without a hint of guilt of wrongdoing, he would flick the ball onto feet of the opposing player in front of the scoring area of the goalmouth. For all intents and purposes, the not guilty verdict was based on the “fact” that he was passing the ball to a fellow player or in the processing of beating an opposing player.

The thing about Hilary was that he was great at reading the game and the opponents he played against. While mounting an attacking he was, like a great chess player, thinking three and four moves ahead of anyone else. To this he added the deftest of flicks to the right or left, a gentle push forward to be swooped on with the speed of a bullet followed by the lethal hit into the back of the goal net with the keeper left open-mouthed and clutching at air.

The short corner brought into play his friend and captain Avtar Singh Sohal (Tari)

Sikh Union Hockey Team 1968 - Gold Cup Winners, H. Fernandes captain.

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who was often recognised as the best full back and penalty corner converter at both Olympic and international level. He was Kenya’s open-secret weapon.

He was selected for three Olympics, including Rome 1960, Tokyo 1964. He played for Kenya in World Cups. Among Goans, he has won the most medals for winning the M R De Souza Gold Cup with Kenya Police, Railway Goan Institute and the Sikh Union, making him the most decorated of Goan hockey players anywhere.

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