GEORGE TOWN – While many know Desmond David as the father of squash queen Nicol, not many realise that he himself was an accomplished athlete in the 1970s when Penang dominated Malaysia’s athletics and football scenes.
The lanky 74-year old was a state and national goalkeeper during the time when he was working at the Penang Development Corporation (PDC).
In an interview with The Vibes, Desmond yearns for the olden days when Malaysians towered over neighbouring countries in athletics, football, badminton, field hockey, swimming and many more.
These successes, he believed, owed much to an effective system which started from schools extending to district, club, state and national levels – and even regional or international in certain cases.
The story of Nicol David shows how important it is to train an athlete from a young age. Since receiving a special wooden squash racket as a gift at the age of five, Nicol has been obsessed with squash.
The Convent Green Lane lass, who grew up in the suburban terrain of Green Lane would spend an unprecedented nine years at the pinnacle of the women’s squash world rankings between 2006 and 2015, as well as winning 81 professional titles.
She trained five and a half days in a week, six hours daily when she turned professional and garnered personal as well as national accolades as a squash player.
But throughout her journey, his daughter was fortunate, as Desmond and his schoolteacher wife Ann Marie managed to devote time to nurture her talents but for other budding athletes, the system has failed them despite the attention from the mass media.
Desmond said that the revival of a quality system must start somewhere – probably at schools where parents must understand that studies and sports can co-exist.
“Why not, Nicol did it. We must have the drive,” says Desmond.
He believes that the inter-school competition must be brought back, as he laughed aloud about his days as a St Xavier’s Institution student squaring off against his Penang Free School counterpart – both schools are the oldest and second oldest in the country.
Sporting clubs can also make a comeback such as the PDC club, whose members trained in the morning before working and later in the evening after working.
Desmond also concurred that politics need to be left out of the sporting associations, saying in those days the late Datuk Idris Haron, (before he became the Selangor Mentri Besar) used to come out with his own money to buy a feast for his players after they won.
Idris was once the Selangor and Malaysian football team manager.
“Nowadays, the sports officials are the ones waiting for handouts rather than use their own money as incentives to their charges.”
If the country had succeeded in the past, it can also replicate them in the future.
But the changing of the system has to start now, said Desmond. – The Vibes, March 15, 2022
