KUALA LUMPUR: Paya Rumput HC of Melaka will debut in Division Two of the Junior Hockey League (JHL) this season, thanks to two dedicated officials.
Coach R. Viknesh and team manager Shahril Hussin forked up RM20,000 to field their boys after letters to sponsors and politicians failed to get a reply.
"We have assembled a decent team for our debut but our efforts to secure money from sponsors and local government representatives did not receive any reply.
"In the end, my manager and I decided to share the costs because the boys had trained and played friendly matches for months in preparation for the JHL," said Viknesh.
Viknesh trains players from SRJK (T) Paya Rumput and SMK Paya Rumput. "The Tamil Primary School is a feeder to the Sekolah Kebangsaan in Paya Rumput, and so it's easy to monitor the progress of players.
"We have played more than 10 friendly matches with other Melaka JHL teams and the results were close," said Viknesh.The Primary Tamil Paya Rumput school competed in the recent Majlis Sekolah-Sekolah tournament and won silver.
And in the National Hockey Development Programme (NHDP) Melaka Under-17 tournament, the secondary school won bronze.
"We were the only Tamil school to compete in MSS Hockey and played well enough to win silver. And even though Paya Rumput HC are not part of the NHDP set-up, two of our girls played with another team and won silver.
"In the boys Under-17 NHDP tournament, we went in as invited guests and won bronze. Hopefully, my players do well in their debut JHL season as well," said Viknesh.
Paya Rumput HC will play in Group B of Division Two with SSN Predators, KL Sikh Sports RC, Franciscan HC and SMidin-MSNT.