Thursday, October 18, 2007

Padang Chetty

I was watching TV during the Eid holidays when TV3 brought up this stories. Padang Chetty to make way for some kind of development. There goes another piece of green spots. One less meaningful place for the future generation. What is there in Padang Chetty anyway? One might asked? Whats so significant of that particular place that we want to deny mighty local authorities the Development?
Yeah, I knew the place. Padang Chetty back in my primary school days was like 'road to Wembley' stories for those who got to play there to represent their schools. Most of the inter-schools final games will be played there; be it hockey, soccer and netball. Yes, I got to represent my school and played at Padang Chetty against the mighty La Salle (Primary) in a hockey finals. I could remember vividly the cramped car rides in my teacher's jalopy ( i think it was a boxed peugeot). My task (and only task in that final) was to make sure the prolific and feared La Salle top scorer, Steven, wont score!
My school wasn't that well known before in field hockey, until the arrival of a PE teacher Mr. Chandran a year before. He handpicked players from the standard 4 and 5 pool and groomed them the latter half of the previous year to prepare for our 6th year. We were given a hockey stick and a ball ( I still have the stick in my store!) to bring back home every day since being selected. Each evening at 5, we will dutifully leave the last period (much to the chagrin of Mrs JR Rajadurai) and start 5 round warm-up around the school fields. We were instilled with the self-belief to win for the school. Mr. Chandran would teach us all the basic; trappings, passing, hitting, dribbling etc. Then next phase; team positioning, roles of each members, team spirits, before finally being grilled on the tactics and tricks (including feigning dramatic injuries!) but most of all, he let us having fun playing hockey. I could still remember his words during those halftime breaks - "Do you want to play at Padang Chetty in the finals?"
Well, we lost 0-1 in that final unfortunately but Steven didn't get to score!


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