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| Monday, 14 February 2005 |
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Sports | |
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Life and times in sport Nihal Gooneratne - a classy boxer by Premasara Epasinghe Fighting with fists, almost entirely a male sports. This sports discipline is known as boxing. Tracing the history of boxing it dates back to the 18th century, when fights were fought with knuckles and untimed rounds. Each round ended with knock down. Fighting with gloves became the accepted form in the latter part of the 19th century after the formulation of the Queensbury Rules in 1867. With the dawn of the 20th century boxing an entertaining indoor sports became popular in Sri Lanka. Many of the leading schools took up to boxing and Stubbs shield became the plum of Sri Lanka schools boxing. Obeysekera's became a household name in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan boxers represented in Asian Games as well as Olympic Games. Today, I focus my attention to one of the best accomplished, classy, scientific boxers that Sri Lanka produced. He is Nihal Asoka Gooneratne, popularly known as Nihal Gooneratne, son of former Sri Lanka cricketer and national coach late Gerry Gooneratne. Mysterious incident Nihal captained S. Thomas College, Mount Lavinia. A mysterious incident cut short a brilliant boxing career of Nihal, and he pursued on a brilliant professional career, where he reached the top in the tea trade. I vividly remember as a sports journalist, in 1960s, the mysterious incident centred round the boxing ring and hit the headlines in 1960s. Gooneratne of S. Thomas College, a hot favourite to be the Best Boxer in the Stubbs Shield boxing meet in 1963, was doped few minutes before the bout by offering him a toffee by some one. An incident of this nature had never happened earlier. Banner headlines appeared in sports pages. The highly respected and reputed sports editor of Sunday Observer, M. M. Thawfeeq wrote - 'Was schoolboy boxer doped? charge by coach. Was a schoolboy boxer doped at recent Stubbs Shield boxing meet? Coach insists he was, while parents of Nihal Gooneratne are not willing to discuss. Nihal Gooneratne's father, my beloved cricket coach Gerry Gooneratne was keen to see his son wearing the majestic blue and black blazer, which is a great honour for any school cricketer in Sri Lanka. But, unfortunately, it never materialised. One of his contemporaries, college boxing captain and ruggerite Gavin Koch, wanted him to fight in the inter-house boxing meet. He represented De Saram House and was pitted against Martynestine. He won the bout. The Thomian boxing coach Wolseley Fonseka, invited him to turn up for college boxing sessions. Thus began his boxing career. Wolseley Fonseka - coach His coach Wolseley Fonseka was a reputed physical culturist, body builder, boxer and a famous wrestler. Nihal is still grateful to his parents, his coach, all the teachers and warden Davidson for all the encouragement given to him. At the time that Nihal boxed for STC, Thomian team was mostly made up of brothers. His brother Mohan Gooneratne also ended up as a Stubbs Shield boxer and went to represent Sri Lanka later. Nihal and Rohan Abeysinghe, Somasunderam brothers, Jeremy, Jeffery and John Vandendriesen. One of the most feared college boxers at that time was Thangavelu, who was later became President of Amateur Boxing Association. Gavin Koch was also an outstanding boxer. "Can you name some of the most outstanding boxers during your era?" "The most outstanding boxers during my time were the Bulner brothers - Malcolm Michael, Christopher, and Noel of St. Sylvester's Kandy. Royal College too possessed a fine team, coached by Danton Obeysekera, which included S. L. Gunasekera and P. Ramachandra, L. V. Douglas of Carey College was also another outstanding boxer during my time," stated Nihal Gooneratne. After leaving school he joined Liptons Tea Department in 1967 as a Junior Executive. He was trained in tea tasting. When Unilever acquired Brooke Bond, he was seconded into Brooke Bond as Tea Director. In August 2000, he was appointed as the Managing Director, Unilever Ceylon Tea Division, comprising Lipton/Brooke Bond Tea Company. Professional training Nihal Gooneratne was trained in tea tasting, tea blending and tea grading in three leading tea broking establishments - Mincing Lane, London, namely George White Sandersons, Ewart Kert Hope and J. W. Thompsons. He had overseas experience as head of Liptons tea buying operation in Kenya, East Africa for 2 years, Singapore for 5 years, Jakarta and Indonesia for 5 years. "My darling Amma, although she gave me all encouragement, was very nervous and runs a temperature before a meet. My beloved father, sacrificed a lot to see malli and I in proper trim - physically fit.I still remember, he used to take two of us to Galle Face at 5 a.m. for running," concluded Gooneratne. |
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