If you love sports and have the afternoon free, take a stroll towards Hyatt Regency from Broadway and walk into Gate 5A, opposite St. Francis Xavier School.
The newly carved out gate leads into Salt Lake’s latest sports utility, the Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Hockey Stadium.
The spanking new astroturf stadium is hosting the 126th edition of the world’s oldest hockey tournament, Beighton Cup, and entry is free. The final is on Sunday at 5pm.
The hockey facility to the northern side of the football stadium complex was inaugurated virtually in course of the Kolkata International Film Festival opening on November 6. The tournament started two days later, on November 8, when an on-site opening tok place in presence of hockey legend Gurbax Singh and tennis icon Leander Paes.
The VIP box in the gallery of the new stadium
“Dikhne mein toh world class lagta hai,” Ankit Malik, the goalkeeper of the Indian Navy team, told The Telegraph Salt Lake. The two-time defending champions were taking the field versus Uttar Pradesh for their first match in the tournament. “The Kalinga Stadium in Odisha (where the 2023 FIH Hockey World Cup was held) has seating on all sides. Here it is on one side,” he added. Two other sides have rolling grassy mounds behind the goalposts from where people can watch the action while relaxing.
The officials of Hockey Bengal are delighted to get a new stadium to host the tournament in. “It cost Rs 20.5 crore to build, as revealed by the sports minister at the inauguration. Earlier we held the tournament in the neighbouring SAI complex,” said Partha Mukherjee, an executive member.
A section of the gallery in the new hockey stadium in Salt Lake
Khaled Hossain, the Hockey Bengal joint secretary, spoke of the long wait for the facility. “It was N.C. Datta of Calcutta Customs Club (that produced players like Olympians Leslie Claudius and Gurbux Singh) who first wrote to the state government, seeking an astroturf stadium. Gurbux took it up as secretary and we secured permission from the Fort William authorities to build one at the Rangers Club ground in the Maidan but it was vetoed by the Army senior brass in Delhi. This ground inside the Salt Lake stadium complex was allotted in 2010 but it remained a dumping ground for decorators’ materials and a storage for documents of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. We are happy that finally the proposal has taken shape,” Hossain said.
The stadium, built over less than two years, has a playing area of 91ft by 55ft with a running area all around of 10ft width. Hockey matches, earlier, used to take place in the Mohun Bagan ground but were shifted to the SAI complex after it was mandated that all national level tournaments would have to be hosted on Astroturf, the officials said.
A year and half ago, another Astroturf stadium has come up at Dumurjola complex in Howrah. “Our sub-junior and junior camps are already happening there. Even the Calcutta Hockey League took place there this year,” Hossain pointed out.
A clutch of sports lovers, who had gathered in the stands to watch the high-class hockey, lauded the new facility and expressed hope that it would not fall prey to lack of maintenance if matches were not allotted here regularly.
