Skip to main content

Daily Nation report on Alu's final farewell

http://www.nation.co.ke/sports/hockey/Requim-mass-held-for-legendary-hockey-player/1108-3848402-241mni/index.html





Monday March 13 2017
Friends and relatives accompany the body of former Kenyan hockey player Alexinho Mendonca during a requiem mass in Kileleshwa, Nairobi on March 13, 2017. PHOTO | COURTESY |
Friends and relatives accompany the body of former Kenyan hockey player Alexinho Mendonca during a requiem mass in Kileleshwa, Nairobi on March 13, 2017. PHOTO | COURTESY |  
By CHARLES OUKO
Kenya’s hockey legend and Olympian Alexinho Eduardo Mendonca, known to all as ‘Alu’, was on Monday honoured by family, friends and former team mates during a requiem mass to celebrate his peerless sporting life.
Scores trooped to the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Kileleshwa, Nairobi, for the farewell mass of the former Kenya hockey captain, rated by his peers as the finest left winger in world hockey, in his day.
He represented Kenya as a player in four editions of the Olympics - 1956, (Melbourne), 1960 (Rome), 1964 (Tokyo) and 1968 (Mexico City). He was captain in Rome. During the mass, no tears were shed, but joy radiated amongst the congregation during the service, that begun promptly at 11am and ended two hours later.
An echo of the simplicity of the great Alus’ own life, their was no funeral programme printed, no official photographers and no videos taken either!
Alu, who took his final bow on March 10 at the Nairobi Hospital aged 85, was born in Goa and was among the pioneering Goan and Sikh hockey players who placed Kenya on the global hockey map; just prior to independence in 1963 and throughout the 70s.
At Kileleshwa, the tribute was read by his son-in-law Shaun Barretto who is married to his daughter Cora-Lisa. Taking pride of place in the front pew of the church was the Sikh Union battalion comprising former Olympians and Kenya internationals.
Undoubtedly a testament to their huge respect for their once formidable club foe, Alu.
Among the former hockey players who attended were Rawesh Balla, Gurchanan Singh, Surjit ‘Junior’ Sindhi and the one and only Avtar Singh Sohal ‘’Tari’. Tari was himself a formidable left full back for Sikh Union and Kenya.
As Sohal and Sindhi removed the two hockey sticks from atop the simple brown mahogany coffin, and then were joined by their fellow Olympians in placing the coffin in the hearse, all assembled knew that an unforgettable part of Kenya’s sporting history, had just come to a close.
Thank you for the memories, great man.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MORE photos of cricketers in Kenya added

More cricket photos added! Asians v Europeans, v Tanganyika, v Uganda, v East Africa, Rhodesia, etc some names missing! Photo Gallery of Kenya Cricket 23 photos: CM Gracias, Blaise d'Cunha Johnny Lobo! Ramanbhai Patel, Mehboob Ali, Basharat Hassan and hundreds others.  

Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands

  BOOK REVIEW   Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands   Review by Cyprian Fernandes     Pio Gama Pinto, Kenya’s Unsung Martyr 1927-1965 Edited by Shiraz Durrani [Vita Books, Kenya, 2018, 392 pp.   Pbk, £30, ISBN 978-9966-1890-0-4; distributed worldwide by African Books Collective, www.africanbookscollective.com ]   Less than two years after independence from the British, on 24 February 1965, the Kenyan nationalist Pio Gama Pinto was gunned down in the driveway of his Nairobi home.   His young daughter watched helplessly in the back seat of the family car.   Pinto, a Member of Parliament at the time, was Kenya’s first political martyr.   One man was wrongly accused of his death, served several years in prison and was later released and compensated.   Since then no one has been charged with the murder.   Now the long-awaited book on Pio Gama Pinto is finally here, launched in Nairobi on 16 October 2018....

The sanctuaries trying to save birds of prey from extinction in Kenya

  The sanctuaries trying to save birds of prey from extinction in Kenya (Courtesy of Al Jazeera) Poison, deforestation and power lines have pushed the African raptor population to a 90 per cent decline in the last 40 years. Raptor technician John Kyalo Mwanzia rehabilitates a juvenile fish eagle to flight after it was treated for grounding injuries sustained in a territorial fight at the Lake Naivasha habitat, at Soysambu Raptor Centre. [Tony Karumba/AFP] Simon Thomsett tentatively removes a pink bandage from the wing of an injured bateleur, a short-tailed eagle from the African savannah, where birds of prey are increasingly at risk of extinction. “There is still a long way to go before healing,” Thomsett explains as he lifts up the bird’s dark feathers and examines the injury. “It was injured in the Maasai Mara national park, but we don’t know how,” says the 62-year-old vet who runs the Soysambu Raptor Centre in central Kenya. The 18-month-old eagle, with a dist...