On Friday, May 2, 2014 the Hockey Section of Royal Selangor Club led by the Hockey Convenor, James Sia went to Pengkalan Hulu, Perak to conduct a Hockey Development Program for 2 secondary schools in that area. This is a community project by the Section to help promote and develop hockey for school children.
There were about 70 school children who attended this programme held at SMK Tun Saban. Present were theOrang Besar Jajahan Hulu Perak Toh Seri Lt Col (Rtd) Shahrudin b Hj Nazari, President of Hulu Perak District Hockey Association, A. Damodaram and a few Committee Members.
After a short speech and explanation by former Malaysian international K.Balasingam, the children (aged between 12 to 18 years old) were divided into 2 groups; boys and girls.
Coaches K. Balasingam, Teh Siew Bee and Teh Siew Heng handled the girls while, S Bakhtiar Atan aka Black, Wong Choon Hin and Max Lal Singh handled the boys.
The four basic activities were hitting and stopping, pushing, dribbling and tackling. These coaches explained the drills and followed up by demonstrating and explaining to the children the activity and the techniques to execute.
After that was done it was the turn of the children to carry out the activity. Under the watchful eyes of the coaches, the children went about executing the activity with enthusiasm and thrill. The two hour coaching programme ended with the children being given a game against the coaches and some others. It can be seenfrom observation that there is definitely some natural talent to be nurtured here.
The OBJ Toh Seri Shahrudin thanked RSC for conducting programme of this nature and hoped that RSC will return to monitor the progress of this initiative.He also express his appreciate to the efforts put in by the RSC members who travelled to conduct this programme.
This self-funded activity was conducted on a voluntary basis and we look forward to more volunteers from the Hockey Section, especially former internationals, to participate in future sessions.
