Ashroff hockey coach par excellence-by Hafiz Marikar

Source:Dailynews

Kandy’s M.A.M. Ashroff is a former field hockey player who played as a defender and midfielder and a knowled geable coach. He was a good player during his playing days for the school and club and was very popular in hockey circles. As a coach he has produced many women players to represent the country at hockey and helped in coaching to win nearly 200 championship trophies at various levels in his 30 years of hockey coaching. He attended St. Sylvester’s College where he played in all age groups under 14, 17 and 20.. He was named best player in hockey at school. He was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame After leaving school he played for Young Stars SC and Kandy District which was a major force at hockey in Kandy during his playing days.

In1991 Seetha Devi Balika Vidyalaya’s then principal Hema Kumari Wijetunga introduced hockey to the school and she approached Ashroff who readily agreed to coach them From the day he took over till today he has helped to win many tournaments. Ashroff was the first to be named a full-time coach of this school .He didn’t stop at just enrolling himself in, he was a regular face in the stands in major tournaments where this school team played and made notes of the opposition teams, a quality that made him to put this school on the correct path in the game of hockey, today they are a top hockey playing school.

His uncle I.M. Anver was a top class hockey coach, who knew how to bring up a player to high level, and he is the one who first coached him and made him to make hockey an interesting sport. Today it is his job, and also earned a good name as a player and coach, mainly due to his uncle’s good work.

He has coached the Navy team for several years and they have been the undisputed champions winning almost most of the tournaments they participated. He has also coached the Defence Services women’s hockey team which earlier won the Women’s Hockey Nationals. The Seetha Devi BV and Seetha Devi SC team coached by him won many tournaments both locally and overseas.

The year of 2012 was such a tremendous success for him that 15 of his pupils were in the Sri Lanka Women’s squad at the Asian Hockey Cup championship held in Singapore. The players were Chathurika Wijesuriya, Madura Dharmaratne, Sandhya Dayananda, Jeewanthika Keerthiratne, Darshani Herath, Maneesha Dissanayake, Geethani Abeyratne, Pradeepa Nandasena, Geethika Nandasena,Nirmani de Silva, Harshani Wickremesinghe, Madhushani Jayanetti, Harshani Kumari, Charmaine Jones, Dilmi Dilani Kumari, Nadeeka Kumari, LakminiWijesundera, He also coached the Sri Lanka women’s team for the First Asian International challenge Trophy in which Sri Lanka won the silver medal.

On the administration side he has been the Secretary and Vice President of the Kandy District HA and at present too he is the secretary. He has been the main man in the organizing part of the popular Seetha Devi hockey Sevens for nearly 25 years. He has also coached the Central Province women’s hockey team and the Kandy schools hockey team. He has been coachingTrinitians, Navy women’s team and Seethadevi B.V for 30 years. He was also appointed by the Kandy District Hockey as men’s and women’s coach, and he was considered as the “Godfather of Kandy Hockey coaching.