Start young and players can catch up with soccer - Piyaratne Samarakoon

by Upananda JAYASUDERA - Kandy Sports Special Corr.

SPORTS PROMOTION: Start young and the benefits will be known soon. This is the view of Piyaratne Samarakoon - an old boy of Dharmaraja College, Kandy and St. Paul's Kandy (now Sri Sumangala) who is a fine soccer player and a promoter of soccer.

Samarakoon has suggested that soccer should be started from the age of 8, 10, 12, 14 and then on to 16, 18 and 20 and the authorities should select district or national sides from the players who have undergone training. The players should be put into district and provincial level squads and then groomed to higher level teams.

Piyaratne Samarakoon has played soccer himself and played for Katukelle United as a centre forward. His contemporaries were Mahinda Aluwihare, T. Amidon, Peter Medawattegedera and Dougie Fernando - some names that came to mind at once. His younger brother Piyatissa represented Sri Lanka in soccer.

Having migrated to Germany in 1966 and from there to Norway in 1972, Piyaratne was employed as a Technical Officer in both countries and followed soccer coaching classes to improve his coaching ability.

Besides soccer, Piyaratne took a liking for boxing. He was a runner-up at the Intermediate Boxing Championship in 1960.

His boxing coach was Derrick Raymond and some of his contemporaries were: Parakrama Jayasundera, M. Sabaratnam and the Bulner brothers.