Sports

Sports

Terrence-the oldest living Benedictine captain
A walk down memory lane.......
By S.R. Pathiravithana
Memories are made of various experiences, and to ninety-three-year-old Terrence Perera they are an plethora of events that has travelled along with him from one millennium to the next. He is a proud man. He is the oldest surviving St. Benedict's College Cricket captain, Oldest living member of Bloomfield C and AC and has the same record at the CR and FC. May be only a few or none can boast of more achievements. He also has the distinction of running cricket coaching school for fifty years running from 1953 to 2003.

Still sprite and very agile, Illangage, Joseph Percival Terrence Perera who was born on 14 August 1910 at Kotahena, sat back, thought for a while and began his story,-" I am the fifth in a family of nine children and interestingly I had two elder brothers, two elder sisters two younger brothers and two younger sisters. Besides, there were three others who died at birth."

" I made my school debut in 1930 and captained the school in 1933. Besides cricket I represented the school in soccer and hockey. In cricket I was mainly a spin bowler and I did bowl off spin and leg spin equally well. At this time a person by the name of Racer Smith was bringing down a side by the name of Maharaja of Visiakram's Xl and this was in 1930. This team comprised cricketers from many countries. I was invited into the combined college's pool and the captain of the side was D.B. Gunasekera.

There were two trial matches before our match. In the first match captain DB was trying out every bowler he knew without success when suddenly Racer Smith shouted out 'DB! try Perera'. Then I was entrusted with the job and I finished with 3 for 6. In the second match once again I finished with figures of 3 for 9. Every one thought that I had bowled excellently but, in the morning of the match I was asked to be the twelfth-man. Soon after I was invited by Bloomfield and I joined them while still in school in 1931. In the same year St. Benedict's became the inter-college champions. I remember Aloy Perera and Martyn Janze playing along with me.

At the end of that year I was invited to join the CR and FC to represent them in soccer and hockey. That year we did well in soccer. At that time there was no system of penalty shoot-outs to decide the fate of a match that ended in a draw. The semi-final match we played thrice against the Galle District team at the then Army Grounds which we ultimately won 1-0. Once again the final against the Trincomalee Rangers ended in a draw twice and we were adjudged the joint champions. We shared the TIMES Cup.

In 1939 when the Second World War broke out all of us five brothers -- Percy, Willie, myself, Bertram and the youngest Irvin - joined the Ceylon Garrison Artillery. If I remember right it was the first time that five brothers from the same family had joined the army at one and the same time. After the war I joined my former employer Walker and Greig and also pursued my sports career at Bloomfield and CR and FC."

In 1952 Terrence captained the Bloomfield and some players who donned the 'whites' under him were Bonny Wijesinghe, J.M.C. Jayasinghe, Bobby Wickremaratne and Hinton Gunaratne . A year later in 1953 John Pulle who was running the cricket coaching school at the Bloomfied invited Terrence to join him and when Pulle died three years later he carried on with the school till early 2003 till he developed knee problem that forced him out of action. However still he goes alone by bus to church and even does the marketing. Terrence also did a sting as coach with his alma-mater in 1976 and 77.

The only enigma that Terrence faces is that his Club, CR and FC, in which he even served as an Administrative Manager has not recognized his services yet. He said " even barman Wilson and even his father were felicitated for long service, but, I can't understand why they have left me out so far".

Back to Sports