It was with profound sadness that thousands of mourners trekked to pay their last respects to former football player Ananda Weerasekera who was later ordained as Rev. Ananda Thera whose remains lay serenely at the Buddhist Cultural Centre, Borella.
Among the large congregation of mourners there were his team mates who played soccer with him and toured Malaysia and Thailand respectively in 1959 and 1961.
Rev. Ananda was an excellent goalkeeper who was second only to the national goalkeeper Muzammil Hassimdeen. He represented the army soccer team for a number of years.
Incidentally his younger brother Sarath Weerasekera (Minister for Law and Order) followed in his brother’s footsteps and emerged as a daring and reliable hard-to-beat goalkeeper while still in College. He later joined the Navy and represented its soccer team with distinction for a number of years.
Apart from his talents as a sportsman, Rev. Ananda was blessed with good oratorical skills. I remember vividly the speech he delivered during the first Malaysia tour at the residence of the Sri Lanka High Commissioner thanking him for hosting the team for lunch. The necessity for the Manager of the team to make a speech thereafter did not arise.
His inherent multiple talents were duly on display when much later on as an army Brigadier he made several stirring speeches to rehabilitate the misguided youth during the abortive first insurrection of 1971. The late President R Premadasa held him in high esteem when he was Prime Minister.
All along the Rev. Ananda never forgot to keep in touch with me and when he was Chairman of the National Youth Service Council at Maharagama, I used to call on him once a fortnight to exchange pleasantries.
T Nizam Hajireen
(Member of the first Ceylon youth soccer team of 1959 and vice-captain of the youth team in 1961)