Who cares about Kandy sports?

by Hafiz Marikar

Sports in Kandy, apart from a few, continue to languish in the doldrums without facilities. Most hit are football, hockey and athletics.

Thanks to the officials of Kandy Sports Club they have turned their rugby ground at Nittawela to international standards.

The Bogambara Stadium was a tower of strength which helped most of the sports activities in the district when it was earlier under the Kandy Municipal Council administration but at present it is not so. This ground was turned into a sports stadium in 1972 during the tenure of the then Special Commissioner the late M.B. Samarakoon. The Bogambara Stadium is considered one of the oldest in the country which was converted from a lake to a ground in 1897.

Gradually Kandy Sports Club and football clubs like Young Stars, Young Wanderers SC, Green Field SC and schools like St. Anthony's, Trinity, Sri Rahula, St. Paul's (Sri Sumangala) Dharmaraja and Kingswood made it their venue to conduct their fixtures in cricket, football, rugby, hockey and athletics.

Kandy Municipal Council was the sole owner of the ground and they helped schools and clubs in a big way. Likewise these schools and clubs helped them to maintain the ground with no adverse complaints whatsoever unlike now.

The people who took over failed to keep up to their promise and today the poor sportsmen and women are suffering, specially footballers, hockey players, athletes and fitness runners.

The Trinity-Antonian cricket match was the first encounter played at Bogambara in March 1914.

Meanwhile Kandy Sports Club rugby coach Johan Taylor is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka on December 15. South African Taylor coached Kandy for six years and guided them to win both the knock-out and League title for five years. Taylor played most of his rugby in Ireland and is a top level qualified rugby coach.