Kenyan hockey legend 'Kake' leaves huge footprint on sands of time

He studied at Miwani Estate Primary School in Muhoroni, Kisumu County from where he joined Kisumu DHT Secondary School for a term before transferring to Kisumu Boys High School and his love for hockey flourished. He played for Kisumu Boys High School until 1976.

His school mates at Kisumu Boys High School were the late Lucas Alubaha, who would later be his teammate at the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games, the late Michael Omondi, and Gilbert Ogolla.

Kenya qualified for the Olympic Games for the first time in 1956 when the quadrennial games were held in Australia, and the country enjoyed a good run in subsequent editions, qualifying again in 1960 (Italy), 1964 (Japan), 1968 (Mexico) and 1972 (Germany), 1984 (Los Angeles) and 1988 (Seoul). Parminder Singh Saini played for Kenya in the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games.

Qualified for the World Cup

The 1970s and 80s was a golden period for Kenyan hockey. The game was dominated by Asians, with a few African players like Erick Otenyo coming through the system.

Kenya qualified for the FIH World Cup for the first time in 1971. The team, coached by Fidhelis Kimanzi, finished fourth out of 10 teams.

This remains the best ranking by Kenya in a global tournament in field hockey. Kenya qualified for the World Cup again in 1973 and finished 12th.

‘Kake’ was of the view that the crop of players who took Kenya to the World Cup at the time put the country before self, something he said the current generation of players should learn from.

His nick name ‘Kake’ is Hindu word for last born.

“I was the youngest member of the family, and that gave rise to the name ‘Kake’ which became my name in hockey circles,” he told me in our last interview with him in Kisumu in March.

His brother Balwant Saini, who was born in Kenya in 1949 and also studied at Kisumu Boys High School before going to Newcastle University in England, played indoor hockey for the English national team.

Balwant played for Slough Hockey Club, one United Kingdom’s biggest field hockey clubs based in Upton Park, Berkshire. Balwant won 18 caps with the English indoor hockey team, the highlight of which was the 1978 World Cup in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

In 1976 when ‘Kake’ went to England for further studies at Langley College, it was Balwant who urged him to take up hockey again at Slough Hockey Club.

‘Kake’ joined the club on the same day as Great Britain’s legendary field hockey goalkeeper Ian Taylor, and the two played in the club’s second team before breaking into the first team. Taylor would go on to win gold medal in 1988 Olympic Games with Great Britain.

He returned to Kenya in 1979 and founded Kibos Simbas Hockey Club, but it struggled to stay afloat until the Sikh community in Kisumu came on board as sponsors, changing the name to Kisumu Sikh Union Club.

But there was another problem. President Daniel arap Moi who had just assumed the country’s leadership ordered local sports clubs and social associations having names with “tribal and racial” undertones to drop them and to seek others with “national outlook” and so Kisumu Sikh Union Club became Kisumu Simba.

As a player, he led Kisumu Simba to many league titles. In 2016, the team was renamed Butali Sugar Warriors when new sponsors came on board.

Kake’s mentor was Avtar Singh Sohal, the four-time Kenyan Olympian who captained the national team from 1962 -1972. Sohal later coached him at the national team.

“I watched Sohal play, played alongside him and he later coached me. He was a very robust and no-nonsense coach who worked on our fitness levels in the team. Because he knew we could not match other higher-ranked countries in competitions, he brought out the best of our strength which was physical fitness just before the 1984 Olympics. We would camp at Kenya Science Teachers Training College (currently a constituent college of the University of Nairobi) weeks before the tournament and it worked wonders,” he said of Sohal in March.

He represented Kenya in many international tournaments, but it was at the Six Nations tournament in Loisano, Italy where he earned his first international cap, against India in 1981.

He captained Kenya at the East African Championship in Tanga, Tanzania in 1983 and in a test series against India in 1983. He played for Kenya in 1986 and 1988 Olympic Games, and also at the 1987 All African Games in Nairobi.

‘Kake’ also played for Africa in the inaugural edition of the 1990 Inter-Continent Tournament in Kuala Lumpur. His last national assignment for Kenya was against Zimbabwe in 1993, after which he retired. He however continued playing for Kisumu Simba.

He served as the vice chairman of Kenya Hockey Union from 2014 to 2015.

In his own words, the toughest opponents he came up against include the great Australian hockey player and coach Ric Charlesworth, Pakistani centre half Akhtar Rasool, who won gold at the 1978 and 1982 Olympic Games with his national team, the late Sardar Surjit Singh Randhawa from India, and retired Olympian Shahnaz Sheik who later took up Pakistan’s coaching job.

I learnt that strict time keeping was one of his major attributes. He did not like to keep people waiting.  When I arrived for an interview at his office along Nyerere Road in Kisumu in March, I found him waiting, having arrived 15 minutes earlier.

Saini believed in the time-tested ethos of hard work, persistence, and fair competition as a means to achieving success in field hockey in a sporting career stretching over 13 years. To him, self-discipline, focus, ability to read the game, and physical fitness counted more than anything else.

“The first thing has to be self-discipline. Without self-discipline, you can’t succeed in sports. So self-discipline comes first, followed by physical fitness. A player must be fit to meet the demands of the game. During my time we used to play the game over 70 minutes but now it is 60 minutes. I used to be fit for about 90 minutes, and that came through doing 14 to 16 kilometres of road running every day except on Sunday,” he told me at the Gudwara Siri Guru Singh Sabha Temple in Kisumu where I had gone to interview him in March.

Untill his death, he served as a member of Kabras Sugar’s technical bench.

“I am happy to have played my role in developing the next crop of players. Most of the players who have served Kenya, some of whom are now coaches, were first moulded here in Kisumu before going to the Armed Forces, Kenya Police, Wazalendo and other teams in Nairobi. As a player for Kisumu Simba, we lost three team mates every season to the disciplined forces. Close to 80 percent of the players in league teams from Nairobi came from Kisumu,” he said in his characteristic baritone voice filling the room, a genial smile on his face.

Those he mentored at Kisumu Simba include former national team head coach Meshak Senge. He leaves behind two sons - Manpreet and Jasraj.

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