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Dhyan Chand: Interesting Facts, Quotes and Myths

Some of the interesting Facts, Quotes and Myths around Dhyan Chand’s aka ‘The Magican’  – one of the greatest Hockey players of all time.

dhyan-chand-dribbling
dhyan-chand-dribbling.
Image Courtesy: hindustantimes.com
india-victory-holland-media-headline

Dhyan Chand was one of Hockey’s greatest and his skills with the hockey stick are legendary. The Indian hockey skills on display during the time that he played especially during the 1928 – 1936 Olympics was awe-inspiring. Such was the wizardry of Dhyan Chand that fans would flock to the stadiums to see The Wizard in action would rarely be disappointed.

His on-filed skills and his off the field demeanor elicited quite a few responses and some of the interesting facts and quotes surrounding Dhyan Chand are captured here.

He was instrumental in creating an aura of invincibility around Indian Hockey.

Famous Quotes and Tributes on Dhyan Chand

“He scores goals like runs in cricket” – While seeing him in action down under, Sir Don Bradman commented on Dhyan Chand’s scoring ability

“The Olympic complex now has a magic show too. Visit the hockey stadium to watch the Indian magician Dhyan Chand in action”  – German media carried this headline all over Berlin following the 1936 Berlin Olympics Final game.

Dhyan_Chand_1936_final-berlin-olympics

You and your boys have done wonderfully to foster the game of hockey in our country I hope that you will return to India with good impressionsand with the same feeling of friendship to the German hockey players as we feel towards you. Tell them how much we all admired the sill and performance of the prefect hockey they have shown us” – A message to Dhyan Chand from George Evers, President of the Deutsch Hockey Board and the International Hockey Federation after India won the 1936 Olympics Gold at Berlin.

“His real talent lay above his shoulders and he treated hockey as a chess game” – Keshav Dutt, Olympic gold Medalist

“If you could not get a goal from that you did not deserve to be on my team”  – Dhyan Chand after giving a beautiful pass to his teammate and then walking away. When later asked by his teammate on the reason for his turning back, this was his response

20 Interesting Facts on Dhyan Chand

1.While growing up Dhyan Chand was interested in wrestling and only dabbled in hockey while playing with his friends in Jhansi. It was only after joining the Army at 16 years that Dhyan Chand used to take hockey seriously and he played in the Army tournaments during 1922-1926.

2. He became known as ‘Chand’ because he often used to practice under the moonlight, in the absence of

dhyan-chand-dribbling
dhyan-chand-dribbling.
Image Courtesy: hindustantimes.com

any floodlights. His friends started referring to him as Chand (‘Chand’ means Moon in Hindi).

3. Even though Dhyan Chand was involved in many memorable matches, he considers a particular hockey match to be his best. “If anybody asked me which was the best match that I played in, I will unhesitatingly say that it was the 1933 Beighton Cup final between Calcutta Customs and Jhansi Heroes.”

4. Though he was the most prolific scorer for India, he captained the Indian hockey in his third Olympics – the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

5. After losing to Germany in the warm-up match, there were high hopes of a home victory during the India-Germany final in 1936 Olympics but proved to be wrong as India played a breath-taking final and beat Germany 8-1 and Dhyan Chand scored 3 of the goals. It is widely rumored that Hitler offered him German citizenship and a high post in the Army which Dhyan Chand politely refused.

6. In the 1936 Olympics, since it was a wet outfield, Dhyan Chand removed his shoes and played so that he could move faster and have better control.

7. In his entire career spanning 22 years Dhyan Chand has scored over 400 goals and his 101 goals in the Olympics is still an unbeaten World Record

8. As part of the London Olympics the game organizers created an Olympic Legends Map renaming 358 stations to honour past and present champions. Only 6 had been named after hockey players and of

olympic-legends-map
2012 London Olympics – Olympic legends map

those 3 were named after Indian Olympics players – Dhyan Chand, his brother Roop Singh and Leslie Claudius. See the Times of India article here.

9. An Astro-turf hockey pitch at Indian Gymkhana Club in London has been named after Dhyan Chand. See the media report here.

10. In 1936, Dhyan Chand lost a tooth when he collided with German goal keeper Tito Warnholtz but came to the field after getting medical attention. In defiance and to teach the Germans a lesson, he instructed his teammates to dribble around the German defense area but not score a goal. So the Indians would mount an attack and after nearing the goal German goal post would circle back to the center field.

11. His indoor pastime was billiards. After retirement in Jhansi, he used to play billiards till late in the night.

12. “Goal”is the autobiography of Hockey wizard Dhyan Chand published by Sport & Pastime, Chennai, 1952. A crude online version exists here.

13. His statues adorn the National Sports Stadium in Delhi and on Sipri Hill in Jhansi.

dhyan-chand-statue-jhansi-sipri-hill
dhyan-chand-statue-jhansi-sipri-hill.
Photo Courtesy: Wikpedia

14. A commemorative postage stamp was also issued in his honour.

15. Dhyan Chand’s birthday, August 29 is celebrated as National Sports Day and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award and the Dronacharya award is given to deserving sportsperson on this day.

16. National stadium for Hockey in Delhi is named after him and known as Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium. It served as the venue for the 1st Asian Games in 1951.

17. Major Dhyanchand Hockey Stadium in Lucknow is named after him and currently serves as the home ground of the Uttar Pradesh Wizards hockey team.

18. There is Dhyan Chand stadium in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh that is mostly now used for Hockey purposes.

19. He retired as Major in 1951 and the same year was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India.

20. The Dhyan Chand Award, which is lifetime award, is given annually since 2002 to outstanding people not only for their sporting performance but also for the contribution to sports even after retirement.

 Some of the Myths around Dhyan Chand’s exploits

Some of the myths around Dhyan Chand revolved around his goals scored in his lifetime, to a statue being erected in the Vienna in his honour to an offer from the Fuhrer to join the German Army. The verdict for some of them are given here

Myth 1: There is a statue in Vienna with four hands and four sticks as a show of respect to Dhyan Chand.

This is actually untrue and there is no record of the existence of any statue. There is a nice blog post that shows the research work and a response from the Austrian Hockey Federation that this is not the case. There is no status of Dhyan Chand in Vienna, Austria

Myth 2: He scored 6 goals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

That is also untrue as proved by his comment in his Autobiography ‘Goal’ that says “India’s goal-getters were Roop Singh, Tapsell and Jaffar with one each, Dara two and myself three”. Dhyan Chand actually scored 3 goals and not 6 as posted in many websites

Myth 3: Hitler himself congratulated him after the 1936 Final and offered a post in the German Army

This seems to be true though there is no documented evidence but many numerous articles suggest that such an exchange actually did happen and in response Dhyan Chand politely declined.

If you come across any other facts / myths about the Legend of Dhyan Chand, please do drop me a line.

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