At the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956, the Indian team came fourth in the football championship. It was India’s best ever performance and has never been bettered till now. In fact after 1960, India has never even qualified to play at the Olympic Games. But that 1956 team had a bunch of very talented players who rose to the occasion. Eight of the players of that team were from Hyderabad, This correspondent was fortunate to have met two or three of those great players before they passed away.
One was the tenacious and steadfast Noor Mohammed. Remembering the battles in that memorable Olympic tournament, Noor Mohammed had told me many years ago that the Indian team was fired up with a great patriotic passion. The Indian players wanted to show the world that they were no less than anyone else.
Experts never rated Noor as a gifted player but his determination and hard work made him outstanding. He did not have a robust physique. He was a person of average height with a thin body. Not the kind of appearance that one would associate with a sports superstar. But then as they say appearances can be deceptive. Noor made up with his uncanny knack of being at the right spot at the right time and a superb football brain.
As a teenager, when his father was busy tending to customers at his bangle shop, Noor would be busy playing football. He gave up studies at an early age much to the disapproval of his elder brother Sheik Jamal who was himself a state player. But Noor’s abilities saw him rise rapidly and he went on to represent the Hyderabad City Police team. Noor became one of the key players in the side which went on to record many notable victories. Later Noor rose to greater heights and represented India in the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 and also the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
“At the Melbourne Olympics, the match against Australia was one of the highlights of my career,” Noor once told me decades ago. “They were physically stronger than us and their own crowd gave them whole hearted support. But we were fired up too. Our coach Rahim sahab had seen to it that we were at our peak that day. They played a rough game but we anticipated it. We knew how to deal with them. When Bombay’s Neville ‘Dsouza scored three goals all we had to do was to prevent the Australians from drawing level again,” said Noor.
“At one point, one Australian player who was playing very roughly came near me and I can tell you, I gave him the same treatment. But I did it so cleverly and disguised my move so well that the referee could not spot what I did,” said Noor with a big smile.
Two years after his conversation with me, Noor sahab passed away. Sadly he died in penury. He had developed multiple ailments and had little money to pay for his treatment. His last few days were spent lying in bed in a cramped room in his small house in Osmanpura.
Noor used to get a pension of Rs.2500 per month from the state government (he had been in the police), and another amount of Rs. 700 from a fixed deposit arranged for him by H.J. Dora who was one of the top ranked police officers of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. In a bid to help him, a group of us journalists collected a sum of money and donated it to him. In his last few days, Noor felt that he would not last long. He lived with memories of his youth which was also the golden age of Hyderabad football.
Yousuf Khan, himself one of Hyderabad’s most famous football players, paid rich tributes to him. “Noor’s tactical brilliance and steely determination were an inspiration to all of us. We learnt a lot from watching him. There will never be another player like him,” Yousuf Khan said. Those words proved to be prophetic. It remains a fact that Hyderabad has never had another player of the caliber of Noor Mohammed.
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