Balbir Singh Sr.

Some Lesser Known Facts About Balbir Singh Sr.

• Did Balbir Singh Sr. drink alcohol:? Yes

• He was born in Haripur Khalsa; a small village in the Jalandhar district of Punjab.

• His father Dalip Singh Dosanjh was a Freedom Fighter.

• Harbail Singh, the then coach of Khalsa College Hockey Team, was the first person who spotted Balbir as a promising Hockey player.

• It was Harbail who frequently insisted on the transfer of Balbir from Sikh National College, Lahore to Khalsa College, Amritsar.

• In 1942, he was transferred to Khalsa College and began intensive training under Harbail’s guidance.

• In 1942, he was selected in the Punjab University Hockey Team and under his captaincy, the Team won All India Inter-University titles 3 years in a row: 1943, 1944, and 1945.

• He has been a member of the last team of “Undivided Punjab” that won the title at the 1947 National Championships.

• After the partition of India in the year 1947, he moved to Ludhiana along with his family where he got a posting in the Punjab Police.

• For 20 years (1941-1961), he captained the Punjab Police Hockey Team.

• Playing in his first International Match at the 1948 London Summer Olympics, he scored 6 goals (including a hat-trick) against Argentina.

• In 1952, he became the vice-captain of the Men’s Indian Hockey Team for the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

• He was India’s “Flag Bearer” during the ‘Opening Ceremony’ at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

  

• At the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, he again scored a hat-trick against Britain in the semi-final, which India won by 3-1.

• At the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, he scored 5 goals against the Netherlands in the final match and set a new Olympic record of maximum goals scored by an individual in the men’s Hockey Final Match.

• At the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, he scored 13 goals in total, which was 69.23% of the team’s goals.

• He captained the 1956 Olympic team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. However, he got injured in the opening match against Argentina after scoring 5 goals. The rest of the group matches were captained by Randhir Singh Gentle.

• In 1971, he coached the Indian Hockey team for the World Cup.

• He was the Manager of the Indian Hockey team, which emerged victorious in the 1975 World Cup held in Kuala Lumpur.

• He also served as Chief of the Directorate of Sports in Punjab.

• Balbir wrote two books – his autobiography, “The Golden Hat Trick” (1977), and “The Golden Yardstick: In Quest of Hockey Excellence” (2008).