The Colombo Gymkhana Club is renowned for producing all-round sports stars such as Lorenz Pereira, Chandrishan Perera, Haroon Musafer, Rohan Paulus to name a few who excelled in both cricket and rugby for CCC and CH and FC.
However, it is a rarity nowadays to see top schoolboys engaging in these two major sports at club level. One of the reasons may be the change in the start of the club rugby season from April to November that happened eight years ago and coincided with the cricket season.
“The downfall of sports in the country has been the clash of the cricket and rugby seasons. In the past, players were fit throughout the year to play any sport. Now that is not there. Those days when they finish school rugby, straight away they come to play club rugby in the Clifford Cup. Now they have to wait till next season and many won’t continue,” said Gymkhana Club chairman Shammi Silva who is also the president of Sri Lanka Cricket.
“This is the biggest drawback to develop all-round sportsmen like it were with Jagath Fernando and Asanga Seneviratne,” said Silva, an allrounder himself being an outstanding cricketer having captained Nalanda and CCC, represented Sri Lanka in squash and played for the CH and FC ‘Kabaragoyas’ alongside the legendary Saman Jayasinghe.
A stalwart of Gymkhana Club for over two decades, Silva also has plans to revive the past glory of the century old CH and FC by installing floodlights in the future.
The Colombo Cricket Club (CCC) is one of the oldest Test venues in the country while CH and FC was founded in 1892 and is the oldest rugby club in the country but plays its home matches at Racecourse ground due to the clash of the cricket and rugby seasons at the same time.
“We know at present our (CH) rugby team is not performing that great. There are various reasons behind that and one of them is playing home matches at an outside venue. We must bring back our matches to our ground (at Maitland Crescent), which will be an added advantage,” said Silva as he graced a ceremony to felicitate CH and FC legends who played from 1964 to 2000.
“I have plans to install floodlights which will enable us to play night games instead of only day matches which will attract more spectators. We can also utilise this facility for other sports too,” he added.
“I can assure with our strategic plan that within another three to four years, CH will produce some champion sides,” he said.
A past chairman of the Gymkhana Club, Shane Dullewa, was the man behind organizing the felicitation event for CH stars of yesteryear for the third time.
“I started this Forum in 2017. I hooked them up from all over the world, not only in Sri Lanka. We have a group of about 150 but I am still adding. We hope to have it annually and for the first time, people contributed for the event,” said Dullewa who related how CCC formed in 1863, CH and FC and Queens Club founded in 1899, all came under the umbrella of the Gymkhana Club in 1959 and their clubhouse moved from Racecourse to Maitland Crescent in 1963.
Chairman of the organizing committee Bryan Baptist, a two-time captain of CH and FC, former Sri Lanka Rugby president and Trustee of the Gymkhana Club YC Chang recalled nostalgic memories with the legends who were present on the occasion, including those who came for the event from overseas Shyam Wijesinghe, Harindra ‘Bogah’ Gunasekera, Rohan Sourjah and Ajward Shariz.
Among the galaxy of stars who were present at the felicitation ceremony were Carl Fernando, Tony Amit, Rohan Abeykoon, Bimal Perera, Bharatha Hegoda, Basil Rodrigo, Razik Zarook, Duminda de Silva, MD Ifthikar, Shashi Cooray, Amith Sumanapala, Jude Pillai, Ajith Upawansa, Sammy Akbar, K Saravanan, Nishantha Dias, Nazeem Mohamed, Upali Vidanage, Janaka de Silva, Rohan Guneratne and Hisham Abdeen.