Hockey: Gurjot Singh carves his own path from Hussainabad to the Indian national team

Gurjot Singh’s interest in hockey began in school as a 10-year-old mainly due to the prestige attached to the sport in the hockey-mad state of Punjab. An envious Singh would watch his friends saunter into class late because they had gone for hockey practice.

Singh’s family, however, forbade him from playing hockey. Chiefly because his school in Hussainabad, in Punjab’s Jalandhar district, did not have a hockey pitch. To play hockey, Singh’s friends had to travel to the neighbouring village of Sarih where they were part of the local club, which had age-level teams that took part in local and district tournaments.

Participation in the district tournament came with the promise of milk and an egg for each player of the team, every day.

These days he’s been showing some promise of his own. And on Tuesday, the 19-year-old Singh was a part of the Indian national team that won the Asian Champions Trophy in Hulunbuir City, China.

Learning hockey required Singh to go to Sarih, but going to the neighbouring village meant crossing a major road. And Singh, as he recalled, was a mischevous child who had once met with a serious accident.

“Main toh shaitan tha bachpan se hi, I was mischievous when I was a child,” Singh told Scroll. “[My parents] used to say, ‘If you are going by cycle on the main road, you’ll do something foolish and get into an accident.’”

When he was eight, Singh, on his cycle, crashed head on with a motorbike while taking a turn. The impact threw him off the cycle and he hit his head against a miller’s stone which was on the side of the road.

Fortunately for the youngster, the bike rider rushed a profusely bleeding Singh to the hospital. Singh had already lost consciousness when he reached the hospital in Jalandhar. He received stitches but had to stay in the hospital for three days due to the amount of blood he had lost. Back at home, he was bedridden for a month and lost a lot of weight.

It finally took a good old tantrum from Singh for his family to relent and allow him to play hockey.

“Another friend who lived next door also began going to Sarih but my family did not relent,” he recalled. “I cried the whole evening and did not have dinner. They finally caved in and told me I could go the next day.”

Like many hockey academies in rural India, the school in Sarih had a modest grass pitch instead of the regular astro turf used in international competitions. Naturally, Singh became skilled at controlling the ball on the bouncy grass surface.

“Our coaches focused on our dribbling skills most of the time,” he said. “On grass, the ball bounces a lot, so learning how to control the ball was something I have become very good at. I can regularly dribble past two-three players with my skill and control.”

Though back then Singh yearned to play on turf, it was the skills he developed on the grass pitch in Sarih that caught India coach Craig Fulton’s eyes.

“A lot of our goals come from penalty corners,” Fulton said to this publication before the team departed for China. “We’re also looking for skillful players that can win penalty corners in any way, shape or form. He’s a good, talented, young player and we want to give him an opportunity.”

In Hulunbuir City, Singh caught everyone’s eyes with his dribbling and close-control skills in the circle as India defended their title in style.

For the longest time, playing for the national team never really crossed Singh’s mind.

After playing in village tournaments for a few years, Singh tried his luck getting into Jalandhar’s prestigious Surjit Academy, which has sent countless hockey players to the national team, but could not clear the trials.

By the time he was 14, he was accepted into the Khadoor Sahib Academy in Tarn Tarn, but it shut down a year later due to the Covid-19 pandemic. His fledgling hockey career had come to a standstill.

With his parents struggling to find steady jobs, Singh started working in a shoe factory in Jalandhar to bring in some extra money.

“I used to work at night and then study or play in the morning. But I would be so tired that I would just fall asleep,” Singh said.

The prospect of finding steady employment through hockey saw Singh clear the trials for Jalandhar’s Khalsa College, which provided him three meals a day and boarding. A bank, Singh said, often recruited players from the college and he hoped to make the cut.

The youngster’s ultimate aim though was to secure a job in the Indian Army.

“My family’s thinking was that I will be working for the rest of my life, so what is the harm in playing and doing something now,” he said.

Unfortunately for him, the national inter-departmental tournament was called-off that year. Just like that, Singh found himself back on square one.

Back at home, Singh began competing for villages in the Pendu Hockey League, a tournament which pits village teams against each other. During one such match, where he played against future India teammates Abhishek and Sukhjeet Singh, Singh’s talent was spotted by a local hockey scout who recommended him to appear for the trials held by Roundglass Academy.

Though Roundglass only admitted players from five villages in their immediate vicinity, they made an exception for Singh having been impressed by his talent. At Roundglass, Singh was coached by Balwinder Singh, the father of Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Dilpreet Singh.

At the first Hockey India Junior Men’s Academy National Championship in 2021, Singh helped Roundglass finish fourth. His performances earned him a call-up for the junior national team.

Before he even played for the junior team, Singh was selected for the Hockey 5s team that won the inaugural Hockey5s Asia Cup in 2023. A couple of months later, Singh was part of the junior men’s team which finished third at the Sultan of Johor Cup.

Despite a decent outing, he missed the bus for the 2023 Junior World Cup after suffering a neck injury. He recovered to compete at the 2024 Hockey5s World Cup, where India finished fourth.

The next step for him would be to break into the senior national team. And with Fulton looking towards the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the coach has started to bleed in younger players into the squad.

Singh is one of them, and he put on a good show at the Asian Champions Trophy in his first outing with the senior national team.

For Singh, who had once simply hoped to cross that main road to the neighbouring village, he has started to see bigger dreams appear on the horizon.