Name: Ajit Pal Singh
Born: 1 April 1947, Sansarpur, Punjab
State: Punjab
Sport: Hockey
Early life
Ajit Pal Singh was born on 1 April 1947 in Sansarpur, a village near Jalandhar Cantonment that has produced an unusually large number of India’s international hockey players. An uncle put a hockey stick in his hands when he was seven or eight, and he was soon playing for his school, the Cantonment Board Higher Secondary School in Jalandhar Cantonment. He represented the Punjab state schools team at 16, in 1963, and went on to Lyallpur Khalsa College in Jalandhar in 1964, where he spent four years and helped the college win the Punjab University tournament three times. It was at college that he switched from full back to centre half, the position he made his own for the rest of his career; he stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and was valued more for directing play and defensive solidity than for personal goal-scoring, reading the game from midfield and setting up the forwards ahead of him. He captained the Punjab University team in 1966 and played for the Indian Universities’ side in 1968, experience that fed directly into his rapid rise through the senior national ranks over the next two years.
Three Olympics
Singh toured Japan with the Indian team in 1966 and played in the pre-Olympic tournament in London in 1967, before making his Olympic debut at the 1968 Mexico City Games, where India won bronze. At the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games, which he captained, India took silver, and he added a second Olympic bronze at Munich in 1972. The following year he won silver at the 1973 World Cup in Amsterdam, and in 1974 he captained India to silver at the Tehran Asian Games, a year in which he was also named to the Asian All-Star hockey team.
The 1975 World Cup
Singh’s defining moment came as captain of the Indian team that won the 1975 World Cup in Kuala Lumpur, beating Pakistan 2-1 in the final on 15 March 1975 – still India’s only World Cup hockey title. Pakistan led through Mohammad Saeed, India equalised through Surjit Singh, and Ashok Kumar, a late addition to the squad who had barely expected to play, scored the winning deflection in the 51st minute. Singh, wearing the number 7 shirt, marshalled the side from centre half throughout the tournament. He led India again at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the first Olympics played on artificial turf, where the team finished seventh, and he retired from international hockey soon afterwards, having represented India at three Olympic Games. He turned out once more for the country at the 1980 Champions Trophy in Karachi, and continued playing domestic hockey for the Border Security Force, which he had joined as a young man and captained to the Nehru Trophy in 1975; he eventually left the force with the rank of Assistant Commandant.
Later years
After retiring from playing, Singh stayed involved in the sport, helping to organise the All India Balwant Singh Kapur Hockey Tournament for the Mata Parkash Kaur Cup, an annual under-16 schoolboys’ event, continuing a link between Sansarpur and the game that had shaped his own childhood. In April 2012 he was appointed India’s Chef de Mission for the London Olympics, the first time a former sportsperson rather than a politician or administrator had been given the role. Ill health, brought on by severe spondylitis, kept him from travelling to the Games, but the appointment was still seen within Indian hockey circles as recognition of the standing he had earned as a player and captain over two decades.
Achievements and awards
World Cup winner and captain (1975); two Olympic bronze medals (1968, 1972); Asian Games silver (1970, 1974); Asian All-Star hockey team (1974); Arjuna Award (1970); Padma Shri (1992).
