Know the Indian Olympians, the KBC way

Someone, who was raised on sports reportage by a Madras-based national newspaper from his childhood, cursed them for not ever having read Neville’s name.

For the record, the 50th year of Independence issue (1997) of the most widely read sports magazine published by the same newspaper group had a beaming Sunil Gavaskar on the cover with the headline, “One Among Equals”. Just flip through the pages and you won’t find Neville’s name in that issue, except for a brief mention that we reached the semi-finals in the Melbourne Olympics and that too under PK Banerjee’s profile who suffers from too familiar first person singular disease. May be the coming issue of that magazine will have a mushy write-up on Neville and photo of his brother, who too an Olympian and a venrable coach Dereyk standing infront of a file photo of the Melbourne Olympic football team, which is mounted on the wall of his Mereweather Road residence …. Thanks to Kaun Banega Crorepari.

But the real question is, was the 15th question worth a crore. Had Neville been alive (he passed away in 1980) he would have definitely said `No’. Dereyk agrees.

“Yes, for those who know, the answer is not worth a crore. It’s much more than that. He gave everything to the game and country and what did he get in return ? Nothing. They could have given him an Arjuna Award posthumously ? He is quite right. In a way, it is a fitting reply to the all those who gave our past footballers a raw deal. Noor Mohammed, another Olympian died of tuberculosis in Hyderabad and didn’t get a mention in most of the newspapers.

“I was shocked when you said you also didn’t know the answer,” said Dereyk to this reporter with disgust. Then he calmed down to say, “I didn’t see him play in his peak form. I was studying in Mount Abu and used to watch him play whenever I used to come here during vacations. SS Narayan, the famous goalkeeper of yesteryear and legendary coach SA Rahim’s first choice ahead of Peter Thyangaraj would have been the best man to talk about Neville. “Unfortunately, he is now in the United States,” he says in a breath.

But Dereyk did play with his elder brother for Caltex Sports Club from 1960 to 63. “He used to put me on the run down the right from halfline and I just used to make a blind centre and his job was to bulge the rival net. Some alleged that he was lazy and the popular joke was we should swapped the football sense and speed between us,” Dereyk informed with a smile.

A former St Xavier’s student, Neville, could have represented the country in hockey also but he chose football. “Beacause football was his first love.”

In a way, one can say Neville has got his due. For the simple reason that he perhaps will remain the only Indian player to score a hat-trick in Olympics thanks to the present state of the Indian football. If Neville died “unknown”, Dereyk is neither a known name. He has received only a Chattrapati Award and after having served Mahindras as a coach for 14 long years was kicked out because of a one bad season in 1997. Now he is applying for the fourth time for the Dadoji Konddeo Award from Pune.

The think-tank was quite pleased with his bio-data but has asked for signatures from players he has coached. Luckily he bumped upon IM Vijyan, Jo Paul Ancheri and Dinesh Nair, who were returning from their Saudi tour, at the Bombay International Airport. They readily agreed to back the man who was the assistant coach to Jiri Pesek of the National team in the early nineties. Is this the way to treat a former Olympian and coach of Dereyk’s calibre ? By the way, Sunil Gavaskar and Wilson Jones, both receipient of the award, didn’t have to go all round asking for signatures!