AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 132 of 237 19 Life Time Achievements of a Services Sportsman Wg Cdr D Gurunath Reddy Genre: Biography INTRODUCTION y father Captain D Venkata Reddy is presently leading a post retirement life at his hometown at Visakhapatnam and is 85 years of age and had served the Madras Regiment Centre (MRC) / 1st Mechanised infantry Battalion for a period of 28 years and retired as Hony Captain in 30 June 1981. After rendering distinguished service, being a war veteran of 1962 war and 1965 war. He was badly wounded in the 1965 war , later after his complete recovery he worked very sincerely and with hard work upon his passion and pride areas of interest sports viz, football, hockey, basket ball , swimming and this grew inside him a strong burning desire to reach the summit. His main game was Football for which he was very passionate and his pride in serving as a Goal keeper of Football team of Madras Regiment Centre took him to new heights and has been instrumental in receiving several awards. Initially he was the substitute Goal keeper of Madras Regimental Centre football team to the former Olympian Peter Thangaraj. During those days between 1959 to 1964 Olympian Peter Thangaraj was the forefront olympian goalkeeper of MRC and with his increasing commitments to international football his availability to MRC has been limited. This period witnessed the rising of Peter Thangaraj to the international level , there was a large vacuum in the Goal keeping post of MRC team. Finally Peter Thangaraj said good bye / resigned from MRC and joined the Indian Railways and later migrated to East Bengal club to seek better avenues. Ever since the exit of the Peter Thangaraj my father D Venkat Reddy became the permanent goal keeper of MRC Foot ball team and has been the custodian of the foot ball Goal post in all Major football Tournaments participated by MRC. He has received awards of Best Goal keeper on several occasions. There has been instances when all the tie breaker penalty shot have been brilliantly saved by extraordinary Performances taking his team to the finals and emerging as winners. He had the opportunity to play with / against some of well renowned NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL fame Indian footballers such as PK Baneerjee, Rahim, Hakim, Mevalal, Simonsunderaj, Habib, Inder singh, Bhupinder singh Rawat, Chuni Goswami, Kannan, Balaram, Nayeem ,Bir Bhadur,Amar Bhadhur,Tikka Ram etc M