Those were the times at the good old “Times”

Apropos my article on Subbiah Muthiah, the former Features Editor of “Times of Ceylon” and Editor “Sunday Times” and whose column “Corner Flag” was a big hit with sports people in the 1950s and 60s, I received several calls asking me to recall the players of that era.

Before going on to oblige the callers, I would like to mention that Muthiah when he was here, met with his former colleagues at a little get-together hosted by Selva Cangaratne.

Present were the flamboyant M.J.M. Zarook, who was an eagle doing the legal rounds, Lloyd Devaraja who did the Ports and Telecommunication rounds, Chandra de Silva whose subbing was meticulous and Wilma Wimaladasa whose speciality was health.

Old times were recalled

During the fellowship, old times were recalled and how they were wishing for those times when everyone worked like beavers to get that exclusive lead and the hard to get byline. In those days bylines did not came cheap like today.

‘Muthu’ in Chennai is still on the ball editing several journals and contributing a widely read weekly column to the ‘Hindu’. He is still up with all that’s happening in the local scene. His prolific writing keeps him occupied and he makes frequent visits to Sri Lanka for research work.

Manik de Silva, Editor “Sunday Island” who though was at the other place during ‘Muthu’s’ time was also expected to be present, but due to an Editors meeting with the President could not attend.

To the sportsmen of the sixties and names that come to mind starting with hockey were - the Fernando brothers from Old Bens’ Stanley, Homer and Subash, the Rayen brothers, Anthony McIntyre, Francis Assisi, Batcho Selvaraj, Charles Joseph, Bana Rajaratnam, the Jumar brothers, Somesekeram, the Wijeyekoon brothers from Matale, Freddie White, that penalty corner specialist A. Mylvaganam, Chandra Schaffter, Chandi Chanmugam, Corky Abeysekera, Jayatissa, Rupesinghe, Ivan de Kretser and Dennis Rosayro whose names come to mind.

Those were the days when several trophies like the Andriesz Shield, Pioneer Cup, Pioneer Shield, Bacon Cup, Wallys Cup and several other tournaments were played. The nationals were eagerly looked forward to and what competition it was.

A tour that is still vivid in my mind was the tour of the Indians after their triumph in the 1964 Olympics. Sri Lanka played two games, one at the Army Grounds at Galle Face and at the Sugathadasa Stadium and both ended in close finishes 1- 0 and 2-0 for the Indians.

Stickers came in for high praise

What games they were and that gallant band of stickers from Sri Lanka came in for high praise from the Indian delegation for their wonderful play where they gave as good as they got.

In basketball there was C. Thurairaja, Jesudhasan, Ponnambalam, Rasalingam, Wilson, Cosmas, Percy and Malsiri Perera, Vijaya and Gamini Silva, Herbert Senadhipathy, Winston Wijenaike, Darrel Arnolda, Brian and Noel Pereira, Milroy de Silva, Edward Sumanasekera, Elmo Jayawardena, Suntheralingam, Mahadevan, Kathiragamathamby, Mahesan, Royden de Silva, Hilary White, Amaradasa, Randiligama, Mathew George, Anton Ambrose, Sam Lovell, Valerian Fernando and Mahroff to name a few.

Even in basketball there were several tournaments contested for and what contests were witnessed. The standard of basketball was very high. Sri Lanka participated in the Asian Games and had the honour of producing the Best Shooter in Asia Percy Perera. When will we ever produce a player of Percy Perera’s calibre? Percy told me that one of the Peace Corp players who was here told him that Cosmas Perera who captained Sri Lanka and was an all court player had the potential to play in the NLB in America. That was a wonderful compliment for Sri Lanka.

Top rugby players

In rugby we had Didacus de Almedia, Tony Sirimanne, Mohan Sahayam, John Burrows, Neville Leefe, Sari and Tony de Sylva, Denzil Kobbekaduwa, S.P. de Silva, C.S. Fernando, Maurice de Silva, Stanley Unamboowe, Nimal Maralande, Eric Roles, Noel Brohier, David Bretherton, Chris Bean, Abdul Majeed and Nizam Hajieen.

The above mentioned were some of the best players that rugby saw here and what excitement they provided when they took the field.

In that era the “Sports Editor” of the ‘Times of Ceylon’ was the likeable Sanda Poulier who was an expert at horse racing and who wrote under the pen name of “Brown Jack”. His second in command was Ramsay Zieglaar another racing expert who took over from Poulier who migrated to Australia.

Zieglaar went on to join the ‘Strait Times’ in Malaysia and then to Australia and the ‘Melbourne Herald’. According to Muthiah, Zieglaar is still into journalism working for the Rupert Murdoch Group. I had the good fortune of taking over from Zieglaar as “Sports Editor” of the “Times” at the tender age of 31, and also proceeded to be the “Sports Editor” of the ‘Sunday Times’ and ‘Daily Mirror’. Later Sports Editor of the ‘Daily News’.

When Poulier was Sports Editor, there were some wonderful writers in A.V. Fernando who was the cricket expert and who wrote as Alban. Percy Beling was the rugby expert and M.B. Marjan was the master of football. As a junior I used to cover school cricket, tennis, netball and hockey. Later on came B. Wijesekera and Gamini Perera with Austin Daniel and M.V. Muhsin as excellent guest writers. The photographs for sport were provided by A.C.M. Zahir and Oliver Seneviratne who too were experts.

I started my career when Tori de Soza was Editor of the Group and whose political column “Without malice” - by Alice in the ‘Sunday Times’ was eagerly awaited by readers.

The ‘Times’ which nurtured a lot of Journalistic talent in its day, finally packed up in 1986 with some of its denizens migrating to other places.