Kandy District Hockey Association headed by R. Maheswaran and the committee are all out to felicitate Kandy’s famous women hockey player Zohara Jumar, who is the first to lead the Country’s women’s team. During her days she was one of the top sportswomen to come out of Kandy and was a well-known figure in the sporting field. She is a double International in hockey and basketball. Strongly-built Zohara who is now 76 years was a product of Kandy’s Good Shepherd Convent, where she played netball and was also a Public Schools’ athlete excelling in the javelin throw. She also played netball for the Central Province and Kandy district as a goal attacker and was in the Sri Lanka national pool in the 1970s and toured Seychelles and Malaysia.
It was after leaving school that she took to hockey and it was Kandy Whites hockey club which helped her in a big way in hockey. Zohara’s hockey career began in 1968 and blossomed with each passing year. She was a member of the Kandy District team in the late 1960s which beat a team from Britain that played in the Olympic Games. Zohara was with the Sri Lanka team that toured India, Japan, Singapore, Germany, Malaysia, Korea and Thailand and she was famous for her strong driving of the ball. In a match against the Familians played at the NCC ground they had only eight members and enlisted the services of three players who had never played the game and won the contest.
Zohara gave a big hand for women’s rugby in the mid 1970s. In 1974 on 19th of October a rugby match was played at the Bogambara grounds between Kandy women’s team against an over 50 men’s team. Up to date other than this game there is no record of a rugby game played between men and women. It was a match between the Kandy Ladies XV and men’s team call the Old Crocks that comprised players over the age of 50. In this game when referee Dr. Dago Gunawardene sounded the final whistle, the scoreboard read 25-22 in favor of the Ladies team, which team was made out of players like Zohara Jumma, Rupa Sugathapala , Maya Warakaulla, Sumeda Warakaulla, Chinta Bedewella, Malani Sirisena, Maliak Perera, Jacintha Karukulaarachci, Chandrani Alexender, Annette Kurukularatne, Judy Wijeratne, Manorani Alexender, Sumeda Samarasinghe, Margaret Samarasinghe, Dalrene Ludowyke, Anoma Mahaulpotha and Swarna de Silva.
The Old Crocks team was made up of Dr. Nihal Karunaratne, Dr. Bandu Edirisuriya, Dr. Stanley Wijeratne, Jim Bandaranayake, Bobby Jayaweera, CP Jayasuriya, ME Marikar, Lal Kumarasinghe, Dr. Michael Roberts, Jayantissa Ratwatte, Roger Abeyratne, Dennis Labrooy, T. Burah, Herbert Fernando, Maurice Perera, Arasu Sinniah and HW Jayaweera.
It was a warm-up match for the Kandy Ladies in preparation for their big match against their counterparts in Colombo the Ace Ladies team organized by Ace Athletic Club and played on December 21, 1974 at Longden Place.
The Kandy Ladies versus the Old Crocks match provided exciting fare to a capacity crowd which turned out to be the biggest and most popular sporting event ever to be staged at the historic Bogmbara Stadium which took a carnival-like atmosphere.
Zohara also took part in basketball for Kandy Whites, Kandy, Central Province and Sri Lanka but devoted most of the time playing her favorite sport hockey. She coached the Girls’ High School hockey team which won the National School Games in 1994 as well as Zahira College, Gampola. She also had a stint in coaching the Peradeniya University women’s basketball and hockey teams and was a strict disciplinarian who was also gentle in her ways.
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