Hockey flick Bolly worth it
Gold was Bolly well worth its weight, as hockey films go. It’s just that its brief visit to Palmerston North was an opportunity wasted for hockey folk – there were only eight of us at our screening and six of them were Hindi speakers.
When our cinemas did local marketing, they should have galvanised the strong Manawatu¯ hockey community into filling the theatres. I mean, how many films are made about hockey?
In Auckland, with its big Indian community, theatres have been sold out. Indians love their hockey and cricket.
Gold has come out of Bollywood and is based on the Indian men’s team winning their first Olympic Games gold medal as a free nation, at London in 1948, 70 years ago.
Bollywood has the world’s biggest film industry, twice the size of Hollywood’s, which is also smaller than Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry.
The film begins at Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics, when British India won their third hockey gold. This is where the political theme comes in. Not so much about Nazi Germany, but about what the players called the ‘‘enslavement’’ of India by the Britishers.
That ‘‘Indian’’ team, led by the wizard Dhyan Chand, had toured New Zealand in 1935. Sadly, such tours where they played all over the country are rare nowadays, so this movie filled a void.
Later came the partition of India when Pakistan broke away and, in the movie, players were caught up in the rioting. While the team at Berlin had included both Hindus and Muslims, by the next Games, in 1948, they were in separate teams. Yet when India played the best of the British Empire in the final, the Pakistanis were exhorting India to win, something which would never happen now.
The movie was in Hindi and English, with subtitles. The hockey was on grass and the drama occasionally broke into magnificently colourful Bollywood music and dancing.
All right, it was melodramatic and predictable, but this was no Mamma Mia. The good guys won. There were fine stick men at play. They had a drunken well-meaning coach and it would have cost a zillion rupees to make. Just a pity it arrived and left so fast. It made me proud to also be an ex-colonial. This leads me to the frenzy to nail NZ women’s hockey coach Mark Hager to the mast after he mistakenly sent an email to his players instead of to the team trainer.
Like all good coaches, Hager is tough and, until this persecution, was always most amenable every time I asked his opinion. He has kept the Black Sticks in the top six during his 10 years with them since leaving Australia.
If the poor darlings and their parents can’t cope with the truth when they aren’t pulling their weight, then harden up or go and play hopscotch.
Former Black Sticks cannot believe this marshmallow rubbish, let alone the public persecution. There will always be someone who has a beef with the coach. Plenty of Manawatu¯ women prospered under Hager and didn’t go running off to NZ Hockey if he gave them a spray.
Varsity takeover merchants
Massey University Rugby Club aficionados on Saturday were pointing out that, in the second half of Manawatu¯ ’s match against Waikato, the Turbos had a Varsity backline.
In their fantasies, they also concluded Varsity would have won the Hankins with that lineup.
From the 55th minute on Saturday, together were current Varsity players Jamie Booth, Hamish Northcott and Te Rangatira Waitokia.
Rob Thompson played one game for Varsity last year when he returned for the funeral of his father, Geoff, the Varsity coach who won two Hankins.
Nehe Milner-skudder’s club is Massey, even though he mostly swans about with the Hurricanes and All Blacks nowadays.
First five-eighth Sam Malcolm always wore blue until he tried out club rugby in Sydney this year and then answered the Turbos’ mercy call when Ben Wyness went down.
The exception was fullback Junior Laloifi, the new speed merchant from Feilding Old Boyso¯ roua. He is excitingly quick, but not the team’s fastest – that is Waitokia, from Varsity.
Meanwhile, Turbos lock Liam Hallam-eames was unlucky that, when he swatted Waikato jerseypuller James Tucker last Saturday, his backhander caught Tucker flush.
Hallam-eames copped four weeks for that while the instigator got off free. In days of old, referees would also have dealt with the provocateur. Referee Kerry Fitzgerald at the 1987 World Cup in Brisbane sent off the initial attacker, Welsh lock Huw Richards, when he awoke after being slugged by All Black Wayne Shelford.
Fortunately for Manawatu¯ , Hallam-eames was only snapped after the match, otherwise it might have been a long 79 minutes for the Turbos.
Gibberish from Sky TV’S talking heads on Saturday: ‘‘Waikato fans have found their way to Palmerston North. It’s not an easy trip now the Gorge is closed.’’ (Richard Turner). ‘‘In Palmerston North you’re either talking wind or rain.’’ (Ben Castle).
When India played the best of the British Empire in the final, the Pakistanis were exhorting India to win, something which would never happen now.