WhenSouth Africa take to the field against India on Wednesday, the former will assume the role of David. Not just because of the two nations’ widely different hockey history and recent form but also because of the prevailing conditions in the sport. Here’s a sample. While India have either been on tour or in camp playing as a team for over 250 days this year, the first World Cup-based training session the Rainbow Nation had come in Bhubaneswar three nights ago.
Reason? A lack of money. Mark Hopkins, who was appointed to the post of coach of the team in February, was deeply intimate when he spoke vis-a-vis financial issues to this newspaper after he oversaw a training session, South Africa’s second as a team ‘in ages’. “We faced quite a few challenges in even getting to the World Cup,” he said. “Players have had to self-fund their way to reach here... we still have no money.” At a time when the Indian players were changing their base from Bengaluru to Bhubaneswar to prepare for the home straight, more than a few South African players were conducting hockey clinics in schools and colleges so that they could, collectively as a group, realise the dream of playing in the World Cup.
That’s just one part of the story. Most of the elite teams — including Manpreet Singh’s men — are either semi-professional or full-time professionals. When the likes of PR Sreejesh, Gonzalo Peillat (Argentina), Eddie Ockenden (Australia) and Arthur van Doren (Belgium) are not playing for their countries, they are all in camps or zig-zagging across Europe playing for their clubs teams. South Africa? Not so much. While a few of them play for clubs in Germany and elsewhere, a handful are practicing doctors, lawyers or salesman, who can only play the sport when they have either met their monthly sales targets or when they don’t have any patients whose lives are in danger.
This is not to say the sport or the sport’s primary body in the country — South African Hockey Association (SAHA) — are going through a period without money. Hockey has seldom seen money in the country, but 2018 has been a particularly bad year for the players and the support staff. One only needed to hear the voice of the body’s CEO Marissa Lengeni after it emerged that SAHA had advertised the position of coach of the women’s team as a voluntary gig. Let that sink in for a second. Coach of the national team not being paid a penny to train athletes. “Every coach we have is a full-time employee somewhere else.
The only time when players earn money in this country is when they play in the Premier Hockey League, which is funded by the Department of Sport. SA Hockey is an amateur organisation.” And that, in a nutshell, is why the whole situation is complicated right now. The players who have made the trip to Bhubaneswar have contributed close to `9,00,000 to make it possible. “The squad who has come down for the World Cup have each put in close to 10,000 ZAR (South African Rand),” Hopkins says. Because the body has had next to no access to money to send their team on tours, the one immediate knock-on effect has been their world ranking. Hopkins explains.
“Including the Commonwealth Games, we have played a total of nine matches the entire year.” After finishing their assignments in Gold Coast, the team had to wait till November where they hosted France in a four-match series to get a taste of competitive action. Of course, if money was the only issue, then an athlete’s willpower can singlehandedly create bridges and move obstacles out of the way. The South Africa problem, however, is manifold.
Thanks to the problematic qualifying conditions laid down by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, the men’s team did not even go to Rio to take part at the Olympics. They had met the International Hockey Federation’s qualifying criteria (champions of African Olympic qualifier) but failed to meet SASCOC’s qualifying criteria of getting through the Hockey World League route in the 2014-15 season. The Warwick-born Hopkins is of the opinion the fallout from not going to the Olympics still continues to this day.
“Yes, there was a fallout,” he says. “But we are hopeful of finding a resolution by 2020.” If these problems were faced by other sides, they might have as well thrown in the towel. Not South Africa, though. Their athletes have learned to cope with adversity which has been a constant shadow. “There is no question of whether my players lack motivation because they are playing at the pinnacle of world hockey. They have learned to put the team first so I have absolutely no problems motivating this group of individuals.” At 6.58pm next Wednesday, Manpreet & Co will look at the crowd for added motivation. Their opponents will just need to look at themselves and the bench. Considering the sizable mountain-shaped hurdles they have moved just to be here, the challenge of playing the hosts in their own backyard appears minuscule in comparison.