Punjab Lok Congress Party symbol

The image shown above is being used by a political party as its logo (see here). This may seem a rather strange adoption, yet it has occurred in the Punjab in Northern India. Not only is hockey the national sport of India but the Punjab is undoubtedly the spiritual home of Indian hockey. It could be argued that it is very appropriate for a hockey symbol to be adopted in a sports-mad place like the Punjab.

Apart from the sport of hockey, the city of Jalandhar in the Punjab is the home of the Indian sports industry which has been responsible for producing much of the world’s hockey equipment for the past seventy years. The actual introduction of hockey to the Indian Sub-Continent and the birth of the manufacturing industry is the subject of another and much longer story that goes back to the days of the Raj.

However, your writer, The Hockey Museum’s (THM) Curator Mike Smith, has a story to tell about the predominance of hockey in the Punjab. He was a frequent visitor to India over four decades and when his younger son wanted a ‘gap year experience’ where better than a visit to the welcoming, friendly Punjab and Jalandhar in particular. A few miles outside Jalandhar lies the rural village of Sansarpur – this really is the spiritual home of Indian hockey. It is a fact, which we are confident cannot be contradicted, that more Olympic and World Cup hockey medalists have come from this village than any other town on the planet. The basic but strong playing facilities nurtured India’s greatest players through the twentieth century. They have a very cosy clubhouse within which are proudly shown all the great hockey players who are the sons of Sansarpur. It is one of those rare places that makes the hairs on the back of one’s neck stand up!

Through time-honoured friendships, our Curator’s son and his travelling companion were invited to daily practice and training at Sansarpur – what an amazing privilege. The ‘travelling companion’ was the Curator’s godson, the son of THM co-founder David Wareham. It is not surprising that the fathers decided to visit India to coincide with the end of their sons’ gap year visit. The highlight was undoubtedly for the fathers to umpire a game on the pitch at Sansarpur, contested by teams which included both boys and watched by the bemedaled sons of Sansarpur. Money cannot buy unique occasions like that.