Sujanthakumar led Royal and CH and FC to cup glory-by Althaf Nawaz

Subramaniam Sujanthakumar

Source:Dailynews

Subramaniam Sujanthakumar was one of the finest Rugby players produced by Royal College, Colombo who later represented the Club and the country at International arena bringing honour and fame to the school club and country

Sujanthakumar who had a nickname called ‘Suja’, hails from a sports loving family as his father was Subramaniam who was the Chief Accountant and Deputy Director of the Philatelic Bureau at the time of his untimely demise in 1977 during a CR versus Havelocks game. He played football for his ‘Alma Mater’, St. Henry’s College, Illavali. His mother was Selvarani who played netball for Jaffna Hindu Ladies College.

He had two brothers and a sister with brother Sukumar having played rugby for Royal from 1974 to 1976 later donned the CR and FC jersey from 1977 to 1982. His eldest brother Sureshkumar was a rugby enthusiast but his career was cut short at an early age due to a shoulder injury. His sister Suji was a House captain in 1984 at Methodist College and was an avid follower of Royal and CH rugby.

He was motivated by his parents and brothers to take part in Sports at the age of nine years where he took up several sporting events. He was growing up in the vicinity of Cooray park, Wellawatte, the current home grounds of Petersons rugby. He considers himself very fortunate to have had like minded childhood friends, at least 30 of them, who congregated there with passion to play Cricket, Rugby and Football. He recalls that nearly all of them went on to represent their respective schools, clubs and also the national team in all those sports.

His illustrious rugby career at Royal began at the under-17 age group under coach Raminal Samarasinghe in 1976 followed by former Air Chief Marshal, Harry Goonatilake in 1977 during which he played a few first XV games as well.

He gradually progressed to the first XV side at College occupying the key scrum half position in the League and sevens champion teams under Rohantha Peiris in 1978 and Raba Gunasekera’s captaincy in 1979. He was also chosen to represent the combined schools in 1978 and scored the match winning try against the visiting Loughborough Grammar School of London.

Along with this he also represented the Presidents XV team that consisted of club players against Loughborough. Later that year, he toured Thailand with the Royal team that became runners up at the Asian Schools Tournament.

In 1980, Sujan led an inexperienced, but a talented Royal team that exceeded all expectations by winning both, the ‘Bradby Shield (7-3 and 16-6) and ‘Guneratne Cup (10- 7) where Royal had a splendid season winning all of their games except one, to wind up with the best overall performance, even though Royal and Trinity didn’t take part in the league tournament that year. Besides him the only experienced players in the team were Irshard Rahiman Kapila Peiris Shanaka Gunaratne and Sumitte Fonseka

He first represented Royal first XV rugby in 1977 at the age of 15 and had the honour of captaining the team in 1980 that retained the Bradby shield for the third consecutive year to become the first Royal team to accomplish that goal. He represented the winning Royal team in all three years.

After leaving College, he joined the CH and FC and played for them from 1981 to 1985. He has some astonishing memories there where, under his captaincy in 1983, CH emerged unbeaten ‘Clifford Cup’ League champions At the age of twenty years he was called for National duty to play for Sri Lanka at the International sevens tournament in Hong Kong in 1982 followed by the Rugby Asiad in Japan in 1984 under the captaincy of C P Abeygunawardena.

At his peak he remained as a member of the CH team that won the League title in 1982 under N.H. Karunasena coached by Y.C. Chang and retained the league title in 1983 guided by Hafi Abdeen who played a dual role as the coach cum player ably assisted by two great rugby promoters, Kishin Butani and Ranjan Canagasabai. Among his team mates at CH were Saman Jayasinghe Baratha Hegoda Rahim Junaideen, S Sritheran,Tiny Miskin, Ravi Wijenathan Patrick Ranasinghe N H Karunasena Haroon Musafer K D Nanayakkara Chandrishan Perera Hafi Abdeen and Ranjan de Silva In his final outing as the captain, CH and FC came close to creating Rugby history in the annals of Sri Lanka rugby. After leading against the New Zealand Armed Forces 14-0 in the final of the main competition of the Singapore sevens, until six minutes to the final whistle, CH succumbed to a 21-14 defeat due to the superior fitness of the Kiwis. On the way to the final, CH remained unbeaten defeating a total of four clubs from England and Australia including the defending champions Casuarina Cougars from Australia. In the 1984 season, He missed out the most of the games under Chandrishan Perera due to a recurring knee injury as a result which wound up his rugby career in 1985, when CH won the Knock out title under Roshan Perera.

Though he was a scrum half throughout his career, he didn’t consider himself to be one since he felt bored with the traditional role of catching and passing the ball in addition to the occasional breaks in attack. Hence, he opted to play the roles of the two flankers and number eight, when in pursuit of possession and bolster the third row, both in defence and counter attack

He said he owes a great debt of gratitude to his school rugby coaches Summa Navaratnam and Malik Samarwickrema for teaching him the finer points of the game and to E.C. “Christie” Gunasekara, Deputy Principal of Royal for the strict discipline he enforced, which invariably benefited them to stay focused in their pursuits.

He moved to the US in 1986 to pursue higher education and graduated from Kean Kean University, majoring in Accounting & Economics. Subsequently, he completed the licensing exams to become a Certified Public Accountant (Chartered). Presently, He is the Chief Financial Officer of Kanerai, a Manhattan based Fintech firm,

He is married to Genevieve Manuelpillai, who is a licensed bank officer with Wells Fargo. His eldest son Sanjay played soccer and basketball for his high school team. Sanjay is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, after completion of his undergraduate studies in International Relations and The Global Economy.

His younger son Stefan is a junior at Cornell University pursuing a degree in Psychology and Data Science.