Balbir Singh, Sr.

Balbir Singh

Personal information
Birth name	Balbir Singh Dosanjh
Nickname(s)	Balbir Singh Sr.
Nationality	Indian
Born	(1924-10-10) 10 October 1924[1] Haripur Khalsa, Punjab
Residence	Burnaby, Canada Chandigarh, India
Alma mater	Dev Samaj High School, Moga DM College, Moga Sikh National College, Lahore Khalsa College, Amritsar
Website	http://balbirsenior.com/
Sport
Country	India
Sport	Field hockey
Event(s)	Field Hockey Men's team
Team	India (International) Punjab State (National) Punjab Police (National) Punjab University (National)
Medal record Men's field hockey Competitor for  India Summer Olympics Gold 1948 London Team Gold 1952 Helsinki Team Gold 1956 Melbourne Team Asian Games Silver 1958 Tokyo Team
Updated on 29 September 2012.

Balbir Singh is a retired field hockey player from India, who was a member of three Olympic gold medal winning teams, in London (1948), Helsinki (1952) (Vice Captain) and Melbourne (1956) (Captain).^[2] His Olympic record for most goals scored by an individual in an Olympic men's hockey final remains unbeaten.^[3] Balbir Singh set this record when he scored 5 goals in India's 6-1 victory over the Netherlands in the gold medal game of the 1952 Olympic Games. Reputed as the best centre-forward in the history of the game, he is often called Balbir Singh Senior to distinguish him from other Indian hockey players named Balbir Singh.

Balbir Singh was the Manager and Chief Coach of the Indian team for the 1975 Men's Hockey World Cup which India won and the 1971 Men's Hockey World Cup, where India won the bronze medal.

During the London Olympics in 2012, Balbir Singh was honoured in the Olympic Museum exhibition, “The Olympic Journey: The Story of the Games” held at the Royal Opera House.^[4] The exhibition told the story of the Olympic Games from its creation in 776BC through to the London 2012 Olympic Games. He was one of the 16 iconic Olympians chosen ^[5] whose example "tells of human strength and endeavour, of passion, determination, hard work and achievement and demonstrates the values of the Olympic Movement".^[6]

1948–1956

London Olympics (1948)

His first appearance was in the second match, against Argentina. In this match he scored 6 goals, including a hat trick. India won by 9–1. He played in the final match against Britain. This was the first encounter of India and Britain in Olympics. Balbir scored the first two goals and India won by 4–0. This gold medal was independent India's first major achievement in the world of sports.

Helsinki Olympics (1952)

Balbir was Vice-Captain of the team, K. D. Singh Babu was the Captain. Balbir was India's flag bearer in the opening ceremony. He scored a hat trick against Britain in semifinal, which India won 3–1. He scored 5 goals in India's 6–1 win against the Netherlands setting a new Olympic record for most goals scored by an individual in an Olympic final in Men's field hockey. The previous holder of this record was England's Reggie Pridmore with his 4 goals in England's 8-1 victory over Ireland in the 1908 Olympic final. Balbir, who was arguably at the prime of his career in Helsinki, scored 9 of the India's total 13 goals at the Helsinki Olympics, an astonishing 69.23% of the team's goals.

Melbourne Olympics (1956)

Balbir, Captain of the team, scored 5 goals in the opening match against Afghanistan, but then got badly injured. Randhir Singh Gentle captained the rest of the group matches. Balbir had to skip the group matches, but played in the semifinal and final matches. India won the final match against Pakistan with a result of 1–0.

Post 1956

In 1957, he became the first recipient of the Padma Shri award in Sports category. He was also a member of the Indian hockey team that won the silver medal at the 1958 Asian Games as well as the 1962 Asian Games. He coached the 1971 Indian Hockey Team for World Cup Hockey, where India got the bronze medal. In 1975, he was the Manager of the World Cup Hockey winning Indian Team.

He has written two books: his autobiography The Golden Hat Trick (1977) and The Golden Yardstick: In Quest of Hockey Excellence (2008).

Awards and achievements

Balbir Singh was the first sports personality to be honored with the Padma Shri award, in the year 1957.^[7] He and Gurdev Singh were featured on a stamp issued in 1958 by Dominican Republic to commemorate the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. He lit the Sacred Flame at the Asian Games 1982 held at New Delhi. In the year 2006 he was named the Best Sikh Hockey Player. Describing himself as a secular nationalist, he stated that he was not convinced about the idea of having a religion-based list of players, but accepted the award since he believed it might be good for the promotion of Indian hockey.^[8] Also, in a national poll conducted by the Patriot newspaper in the year 1982 he was adjudged to be the Indian Sportsperson of the Century.

Controversy

Although the record for most goals by an individual in an Olympic final belongs to Balbir Singh there have been many erroneous media reports over the years claiming that Dhyan Chand scored 6 goals in India's 8-1 victory over Germany in the 1936 Olympic final. However, Major Dhyan Chand in his autobiography titled “Goal!” published in 1952 by Sport & Pastime, Chennai, writes as follows:

“When Germany was four goals down, a ball hit Allen's pad and rebounded. The Germans took full advantage of this and made a rush, netting the ball before we could stop it. That was the only goal Germany would score in the match against our eight, and incidentally the only goal scored against India in the entire Olympic tournament. India's goal-getters were Roop Singh, Tapsell and Jaffar with one each, Dara two and myself three.”

The record for most goals by an individual in an Olympic final has belonged to Balbir Singh since the 1952 Helsinki Olympic games. He set this record by scoring 5 goals in India's 6-1 victory over the Netherlands for the gold medal win. The previous holder of this record was England's Reggie Pridmore with his 4 goals in England's 8-1 victory over Ireland in the 1908 Olympic final.

International Hockey Federation records also attribute only 3 of the 8 goals to Dhyan Chand in the Berlin Olympic final.^[9]

There has been much myth making around Dhyan Chand without any citations or attributions. The fact is that Balbir Singh surpassed Dhyan Chand in every regard as the following analysis reveals:

Early years

Balbir Singh saw a newsreel on India's 1936 Olympic Hockey Team's triumph and it got etched in his mind for ever. He was deeply inspired by Dhyan Chand's jugglery with the hockey stick and played in the same position, in which Dhyan Chand played: center forward. Eventually, Balbir's Olympic records surpassed even those of his childhood hero, Dhyan Chand.

Balbir was spotted as a promising hockey player by Harbail Singh, who was the then coach of Khalsa College Hockey team. It was Harbail who repeatedly insisted that Balbir took a transfer from Sikh National College, Lahore to Khalsa College, Amritsar. Finally, Balbir got the permission from his family to take the transfer to Khalsa College in 1942. Then he started intensive training and practice sessions under Harbail's guidance. Later, Harbail coached the successful Indian National Hockey team in Helsinki Olympics and Melbourne Olympics.

Khalsa College had great sporting atmosphere with four hockey pitches. In 1942-43, Balbir got selected to represent Punjab University, which at that time, covered colleges from a big region consisting of undivided Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Sindh and Rajasthan. Punjab University team won All India Inter-University titles with Balbir as Captain for 3 years in a row - 1943, 1944 and 1945.

Balbir was a member of the last team of undivided Punjab that won the title in 1947 Nationals under the captaincy of Colonel AIS Dara. Balbir played in center forward position in this team. After this win, they were welcomed back very heartily in Lahore. But by then, disturbances due to partition of India had already started. He moved his family to Ludhiana, where he was posted in Punjab Police. He captained the Punjab Police team during 1941-1961.

Partition had a big impact on Punjab hockey team, which got divided between the two new nations: India and Pakistan.

Family

His paternal grandparents are Dosanjh from the Punjabi village of Pawadra and maternal grandparents are Dhanoa from the village Haripur Khalsa. Both are in Tehsil Phillaur in District Jalandher in Punjab. Balbir's father Dalip Singh Dosanjh was a freedom fighter. Balbir's wife Sushil was from Model Town, Lahore. They got married in 1946. They have a daughter Sushbir and three sons Kanwalbir, Karanbir, Gurbir.

See also

• List of Indian hockey captains in Olympics
• Field hockey in India
• India national field hockey team

References

External links

• detailed profile
• profile
• Autobiography: The Golden Hat Trick (1977)