Stanley was outstanding

It was sad to hear of the sudden demise of Stanley Fernando in Canada an Old Benedictine and a contemporary of mine.

Fernando was one, if not the finest hockey player produced by the Kotahena school in the late 1950s and the 1960s. At a very early age he showed outstanding prowess with the curved wand coming under the wing of easily the best hockey coach that the school had Brian J. Assey. Fernando went on to make phenomenal progress and it was not long when representative honours came his way.

Fernando after a chequered career at the green, white and green school, started his club career with Youngsters SC a club in Kotahena, then the Old Bens and later Sri Lanka (Ceylon).

Fernando was a superb centre half and his fine positional play, magical dribbling and timely passing was a treat to watch.

He played in many a trophy winning Old Bens teams and in the sixties the Old Bens were the envy of all other teams. He led the Bens and then Sri Lanka and that was the era when the game in the country was at its best.

In those days Ceylon took part in many international tournaments and being an outstanding team dribbled in the Asian Games and gave a good account of themselves.

In those days I was the hockey correspondent for the ‘Times of Ceylon’ and still remember the Asian and Olympic champions India playing here in the early sixties.

That Indian team had some great dribblers. They played a couple of games at the then Sugathadasa Stadium and at Galle Face. Ceylon lost to them by margins of one-nil and two-nil, but the Ceylon team had opportunities of scoring but did not have that thing called luck. That was the time when the Ceylon team had five Benedictines playing for them. They were Stanley and his brother Homer, Anthony McIntyre, Francis Assissi and Batcho Selvaraja. Later Stanley’s younger brother Subash who was one of the best dribblers, probably in Asia joined them in playing for the national team.

The three brothers Stanley, Homer and Subash were household names during that era. Spectators used to flock to see them produce their stick artistry.

Homer predeceased Stanley. Subash is in Perth, Australia. Stanley died of a massive heart attack in Canada according to Leslie Figurado another hockey and footballer at SBC who later became the manager of the Old Bens team.

The Fernando brothers learnt their early hockey lessons from Bro. Mathias who was in charge of the game in the school.

May the turf lie lightly on Stanley.

Elmo RODRIGOPULLE.