Kannur District - Sports and Games

Sports and Games

Many well-known personalities in the field of sports and games have adorned Kannur in their respective fields. The Englishmen of the Military Centre brought field hockey, cricket, football, etc. to Kannur during the pre-independence period. The famous Fort Maidan (ground) and Police Maidan provide ample facilities for youths to excel in this field. The CDRE Football team and Hockey team excelled in those days. At the same time, the traditional martial arts like Kalaripayatu has also been flourishing here all along.

After Independence, the football clubs helped spread the spirit of the game in Kannur. Spirited Youths, Lucky Star, Brothers Club and Gymkhana Club were popular and produced well known players like D'cruz, Soman, Dasan, etc. Sree Narayana College in Thottada was considered a nursery of sporstmen the most prominent of them being B Devananad who captained the college and later Calicut University (the college is now under Kannur University) to national universities title. Devananad later played for the Indian Youth team in Bangkok and several other tournaments to be picked by Tata Football team in Mumbai. He was the fullback when Kerala won its first Santosh Trophy title in 1973. Similarly Mani, the captain of the Santosh Trophy winning Kerala team was another well known player though he faded off the sports horizon.Denson Devadas who is currently playing for Prayag United S.C. in the I-League as a Midfielder is from Kannur.

Jimmy George, the veteran Volley Ball player who was selected as one of the top 10 strikers in the world when he was playing for an Italian Club was born and brought up in Kannur.

In Hockey too, apart from the military team, there were good teams in Kannur and Thalassery. Cricket, ball-badminton, weightlifting, gymnastics, wrestling, volleyball, etc. have been widely played in both urban and rural areas. Volleyball has been concentrated upon by youths in rural areas. Former Indian hockey goalkeeper Manuel Frederick is from Kannur. Ivan D'Cruz who hails from Kannur has represented Kerala in Cricket and Hockey.

When Sports Divisions were started in schools in 1976 to tap talents, one of its divisions was started in the district. The Sports Division attached to Govt. Higher Secondary School, Kannur, produced international stars like P.T Usha and M.D. Valsamma in athletics. Leelamma Thomas and Moly Benedict in basketball and Anitha Retnam and Anandavalli in volleyball. The Police Maidan was the venue for M.D Valsamma and Mercy Mathew to practise athletics; P.K. Balachandran, V.P. Sathyan, D'cruz, Rajan, Ramanan, Sugunan, C.M. Chidanandan, B Devananad and George in football and Ford and Olympian Manuel Frederick in hockey. Westline & Leslie in cricket had their training at Fort Maidan.

Kannur became famous in South India for ball badminton, when T.K. Ramakrishnan and Kumaran were playing. A.M. Bharathan created history in weight lifting in the early fifties. Nelliary Krishnan Nair, the first Malayalee to represent India (weightlifting) at the first Asian Games held at New Delhi in 1951 is from Kannur.

It is also believed that the game of cricket first found its way to Kannur, with the British, thus making it the birthplace of the game in India. A few years back, the district cricket association celebrated the 200th anniversary of the game in the district, in a function attended by eminent cricketers like Dilip Vengsarkar.