Royal -Kingswood clash for Lennie de Silva Trophy

Richard Dwight

Royal will host Kingswood College, Kandy who travel down to Colombo for their annual Lennie de Silva Trophy hockey encounter today at Royal College Grounds, Reid Avenue at 4.00 p.m.

This series have been evenly contested from the inception except last year when Royal led by Ashane Peiris won by a wide margin of 6 goals to one. Both teams have fared well this year and the match is bound to bring out the best in both teams. Royal will undoubtedly go flat out to retain the trophy they won last year for the first time in the series while Kingswood will play their hearts out to regain it and an interesting game is on the cards.

Lennie de Silva Trophy was donated by the Royal College Hockey Club to honour the man who introduced the game of hockey to Royal way back in 1955 which year the team was led by the outstanding school boy sportsman Lionel Almeida. Lennie was an old boy of Kingswood College Kandy who also taught at his Alma Mater and then moved to serve Royal in 1946 until his retirement in 1968.

Both Royal and Kingswood have been playing each other for over 50 years and the presentation of the trophy has added attraction and enthusiasm to this encounter.

These two institutions have produced many outstanding sportsmen and Hockey Players in the past. Kingswood under the guidance of Leonidas James have produced many outstanding players of the calibre of Freddie White, one of the best Goal Keepers in Asia, Brian Peiris, Roy de Silva, Jumar brothers, Mohamed and lqbal, Harvie brothers-Derrick and Clifford, Herbie Jayasuriya, Jitha Jayasuriya, T.M. Samad, T.S. Adahan, Mayan de Silva, and Royal College boast of the versatile Lionel Almeida of Rugby fame, Dr. Chandi Chanmugam, Dr. H.C. Rasiah, Dr. H.N.

Wickramasinghe, N. Ramanathan, Godwin Daniel, T.K. Kirubathilekaran,. R.H. Aldons, Budge Metzerling, Brothers MW and SP Selliah, Nanda Senanayake, S.D. Jayaratne, S.S. Kumar, Nihal Kodituwakku, M.R. Ashroff, M.I. Ilangage, Nihal Nilaweera, L.A.D. Sirisena, M.I. de Silva, Nihal Mendis, Eran Wickramaratne, N. Kudagama, Damith de Silva, S. Gajanayake, Asitha Jayaweera and Aslam Assen. The results of the previous four encounters are as follows.

2004 - one all draw, 2005-3-3 draw, 2006 - Kingswood won 4-3, 2007-Royal won 6-1. The Junior match for the O.K. Roshan Trophy will precede the senior match at 3.15 p.m. The Chief Guest at this occasion will be Lionel Almeida, the first captain of Royal Hockey in 1955.