Dashing winger Abdul Majeed brought honour and fame to Sri Lanka-by Althaf Nawaz

Abdul Majeed

Zahira College, Colombo has played a pivotal role in producing great academics as well as some quality sportsmen, who had a brilliant career beginning from school, club and then at International level bringing honour and fame to the country. Meera Sahibo Abdul Majeed was one of the greatest players produced by the school, who had an illustrious career in rugby

Majeed was born in Potuvil and his father was I.L. Meerasahibu Podiyaar well known as ‘Rasapodiyaar’ was the Ex. Chairman of Pottuvil Village Council(VC). His mother was Juwairiyathumma, the famous Arachchi Podiyaar’s daughter. His family consists of 12 children inclusive of five boys and seven girls where he was the seventh in the family. His wife was Ummu Salma and her father Mohamed Mustapha the Ex.Chairman of Pottuvil VC and Ex. Quazi(Judge). He has two sons who studied at Royal College, Colombo and a daughter. One son is a doctor and the other is an engineer living in Australia while his daughter is in England as a housewife.

Majeed as a young boy started his school career at Methodist Mission School, Pottuvil. Thereafter joined the Muslim Boys school and the Central College in Pottuvil respectively. He was a brilliant student and in 1952 he got through the grade five scholarship exam from Muslim Boys School, Pottuvil. He was admitted to St.Michael’s College, Batticaloa in 1953 for further studies . There he launched his sporting career that coincided with education. He was a livewire in College Athletics and Soccer teams under Rev. father Weber. Monitoring his progress his family decided to transfer him to a school in Colombo and finally enrolled him in Zahira College, Colombo in 1958.

With a much bigger set of students and better facilities at Zahira, he enjoyed his career brimming with confidence. Ultimately he became the cynosure of all eyes at College beginning with athletics, where he established several records.

In1959, he was chosen to don the College soccer jersey, in that invincible soccer team captained by late Kumarasamy, where they ended up as undisputed school champions.

Monitoring his athletic and soccer skills the school authorities invited him to lock horns in the Rugby Football team in 1959, where they had a series of Coaches likes late Samad, Muhlar, K.S. Mohamed and Faleel. With his skills and fine performance at the school level as a school boy, he was called to represent the CR and FC team to play against CH and FC at the race course. CH and FC was captained by Neville Leefe, who then was the Sri Lanka rugby captain. All members of CH and FC were Europeans. He was instrumental in scoring the solitary try against the mighty CH and FC team. He went on to play for CR from 1959 to1963 while still in school.

In 1964, Sri Lanka Police offered him a job to join them as a probationry Sub Inspector. At time of joining them Rodney Aluwihare was the captain of the Police rugby team later S Sivendran took over from him. He went on to represent the Sri Lanka Police Rugby team from 1964 to 1972 whilst being captain, they entered the history books by sharing the ‘Clifford Cup’

with Havelock Sports Club with a 6 all draw Due to this achievement he was promoted as Inspector of Police by then IGP late Stanley Senanayake. He captained the Police Rugby team in 1968 and 1970 seasons. Due to his rugby skills and performance as a winger he was called the ‘flying gazelle’ especially due to his running speed by the rugby fraternity. He also entered history while claiming the rare honour of becoming the first Policeman to captain the Sri Lankan Rugby team in 1971 against All England captained by Budge Rogers.

He embarked on his National Rugby career by representing Sri Lanka as a winger from 1966 to1972. Due to limited overseas tours in that era they managed to travel to various cities in India and Bangkok with the Sri Lankan team.He also played for Sri Lanka against top clubs which came from England Bosuns RFC and Blackheath.RFC He also had the rare feat of scoring a try against the visiting teams. Some of the top players who played for Sri Lanka with him were Anton Benedict, Dan Ratnam, Jeff Ratnam Bryan Baptist, Denzil Kobbekaduwa Hadji Omar Keith Paul Y C Chang Jupana Jayawardena Gogi Tillekeratne Mike de Alwis Tony Rankine John Burrows Sari De Sylva Dr. Tony de Sylva,Omar Sheriff Ibrahim Tanker Hamid and Glen Vanlangenberg.

As a policeman he served in the Northern, Eastern and Western Province from OIC to an ASP. As a SP he functioned as the Deputy Director of Sri Lankan Intelligence and went on to serve as a Security Coordinating Officer in the Eastern Province under the Ministry of Defence during the height of the ethnic crisis as a SSP.

In the year 1985 to1988 also functioned as the first Secretary to the Deputy High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in Chennai. Whilst as a SSP he was compelled to enter politics on a request by late President R.Premadasa and A.C.S.Hameed then Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 2004 was nominated as a Member of Parliament, subsequently also contested and was elected as a Member of Provincial Council of Eastern Province.