Skip to main content

Stars Next Door.... Roland Collaco

Roland Collaco

A victim of  politics

*By Norman DA COSTA
It’s  the lifelong dream of every amateur athlete to represent their country at  the  Olympic  Games.  Once  getting  there  each  one  harbours  the  thought

of standing on the podium with a shiny medal dangling around his or her neck. Roland Collaco wasn’t any different. Getting to the Olympics in Munich in 1972 would have put an exclamation point on a brilliant career for possibly Africa’s finest field hockey goalkeeper at the time. He was the only player on the Uganda squad assured of a seat on that flight to the Bavarian city, but as fate would have it, politics reared its ugly head and shattered his dreams. That year Idi Amin’s Uganda was gripped in the midst of a political turmoil and the government demanded the Olympic squad include a number of African players.

Unfortunately, Collaco, who passed away at the age of 78 in Mississauga on    Sept. 5, 2013, was unceremoniously left out in the cold. “We were all so stunned when we heard Roland was dropped,’’ recalled Ajit Singh, captain of Kampala   Sikh Union, who along with the rest of his teammates often found Collaco an impenetrable force in the Kampala Goan Institute net. “He was the unluckiest man ever to miss out on the Olympics because of politics, especially since he    was the main reason we qualified for Munich,’’ added  Ajit.

Collaco was at his brilliant best in Lusaka  in  1971,  stonewalling  Zambia,  South  Africa and favoured Egypt in the qualifiers to help Uganda grab one of the  two Olympic berths assigned to Africa behind  perennial  champions  Kenya.  To say  Collaco  was  devastated  at  being  left  out  would  be  an  understatement.  “He    was very, very hurt at the time,’’ said his wife Eurema, also a former Uganda international. Born in Nairobi, Roland moved to Uganda with his parents in 1951    and four years later made his international debut and went on to earn more than        a   100 caps.

Goalkeepers normally wear No.1 on their jerseys and Collaco’s number was symbolic of his importance on the Kampala G.I. and the national team squads.    He retained that No.1 position and also captained Uganda until migrating to Canada in 1972. What differentiated Collaco from other netminders of that era
was that he was bold and utterly fearless. Only other did not wear a facemask, was Kenya’s Jack Simonian, who also doubled as a world-class rally driver.

goalkeeper who springs to mind as equally courageous and, who like Collaco

Collaco  usually  saved  his  best for the Easter holidays when the top clubs descended  on  Nairobi to contest the M.R. de Souza  Gold Cup, the Blue Riband  of  East African hockey.  After  years of coming close, Collaco finally backstopped a talented and experienced Kampala Goan Institute to the coveted Gold Cup in 1957 in a stirring replay against Nairobi Sikh Union after the first encounter ended in a goalless draw. Collaco, of course, kept the Sikh offence at bay by pulling off two superb saves before  goals  by Rennie Rodrigues and Polly Pereira carted the trophy across the border to Uganda for the very first time. Collaco also led Toronto Lions to the inaugural GOA Gold Cup in Toronto  in 1974.

Al Mathias, a KGI and national team teammate of Collaco’s for several years, termed his play as “brilliant and terrific” and so did Nicky De Mello, who tried      to lure Collaco to his newly-formed Horizons Sports Club. “Roland was really excellent and so daring,’’ said De Mello. “He was never afraid and would dive every each way to stop the ball. He was a much-sought  after player.”  These  same sentiments were also echoed by Ajit Singh and Mathias and several other players. Collaco, of course, was also a first-class soccer goalkeeper and it was     his stint with Salgaocar, one of Goa’s leading teams that helped him hone his diving skills in  hockey.

Fans and opposing teams may have resented him, but they had nothing but the highest respect for him as was evidenced by the more than 350 who attended his funeral. Collaco who leaves behind his wife Eurema, was father of Conrad and Paula, father-in-law of Sylvan and Alison, grandfather to Mathew, Sara, Jacob   and Grace and brother of Thelma Sidoli (Renato) and Remy.

*Former sports editor of the Daily Nation not only reported on  Roland,  but  also  played against him on  several  occasion  for  the  Railway  Goan  Institute  in  Gold  Cup   matches.

Comments

Post a Comment

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.  
1 comment
Read more

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....
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more