Fitting finale, joint winners for Joe Ezekiel Cup

May 31, New Delhi: Coming from 1-3 down, Citizen XI team surprised fighting and dominating Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, Ashok Nagar, to earn join winners label in the first Prof Joe Ezekiel Inter-School Hockey Cup 2015, with a pulsating score of 3-3.

Citizen XI took the lead through an immaculate penalty corner conversion, only to concede three goals to Ashok Nagar school and then from 1-3 down came up with two good performances that yielded two goals to end the match 3-3.

Hardworking front player Parshant managed to outfox entire defence to bring the score to 2-3 when he created enough dodge to enter into the D with the ball.

Just when less than a minute remained for the hooter, energetic midfielder Sanjay Soni of Citizen XI, which played the recent Sub-Junior Nationals in Jammu, struck much to the delight of goody crowd (3-3).

Due to bad light and over-running time, the organizers decided to award the title jointly to both the deserving teams.

The inaugural event was started four days ago, which saw exciting schools hockey in Delhi, which normally is deprived of quality tournament.

Grabbing the opportunity that came their way, the participating 8 teams showed enough gut and prowess, and also braved hot summer, to garner enough match experience.

Graceful Khorshed W Ezekiel, wife of late Prof Joe Ezekiel, in whose memory the event is conceptualized and executed, was present herself to witness the event, and also to give away the winners trophy and other prizes.

Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, Bangner, was adjudged as the Fair Play winner, while Navneeth of Ashok Vihar team won the Outstanding Player of the Tournament.

Ten players were selected as the Rising Stars and were presented with a pair of quality shoes and a trophy each.

Its worthwhile to note here that the teams were mostly from government schools, who do not get opportunity to showcase their latent potential and the players are normally from very low rungs of of the stratified society.

When these players, who turn out to be exciting artistic players, like Rahul and Rohit of Citizen XI, it augurs well for the welfare society that we are, and when they together with captains of all participating teams bowed in utmost respect to the feet of the Chief Guest Mrs. Korshed W Ezekiel, it evoked etching memories and emotional moments.

Gulu Ezekiel, son of prof Joe Ezekiel, was excited to be with his age-old mother and witness the grand and fitting finale.

“Perhaps my mother, an ardent follower of great legends like AIS Dara of early 30s and 40s, is witnessing a hockey match after almost 5,6 decades” Gulu recollected.

The event was organized by the Delhi based NGO, Hockey Citizen Group, which runs the universally popular One Thousand Hockey Legs project in five cities of India. Its Founder & CEO K. Arumugam was also present on the occasion.

The list of award winners:

Best players:
Parshant, SBV Ashok Vihar
Tinu, SBV Ashok Vihar
Pankaj, GBSSS, Khanpur
Mukul, SBV Ashok Nagar
Vikky, GCSBV, Shahpurjat
Abhinandan, GBSSS, Mahrauli
Parvez, Anglo-Arabic Sr. Sec. School

Caption (from top):


Chief Guest Mrs. Khorshed W. Ezekiel and sponsor Mr. Gulu Ezekiel with the joint winning teams at the end of the first Prof. Joe Ezekiel Memorial Inter-school Hockey Cup organized by One Thousand Hockey Legs at the Shivaji Stadium on Sunday. The final ended 3-3.

Mrs Khorshed W. Ezekiel and her son Gulu Ezekiel on the occasion

Celebration after Citizen XI struck the equalizer in the last minute