On sports terrain,Venky’s scored a goal none dared

The month of May saw Pune’s first professional football club —Pune FC— end its debut season in the I League on a high as it finished in third place. After getting off to a poor start,it finished strongly winning 10 games and drawing 12.

In June,Lavasa Corporation signed an MoU with Britain’s greatest Olympian and global sporting icon Steve Redgrave to launch the Sir Steve Redgrave Rowing Academy to be located along the impressive 60-km lake frontage at the planned Lavasa hill town in the Sahyadri ranges. Redgrave is another important name amongst the worldly known Manchester City Football Club and Nick Faldo to secure land to set up its academies in this futuristic sports kingdom.

July was highlighted by the women ruggers of the city. Seven of them made it into the 12-strong squad to take part in the Asian Rugby Sevens Tournament.

November saw the biggest development for sports in Pune. The Venky’s Group of Pune completed the takeover of Blackburn Rovers Football Club to be part of the The Barclay’s Premier League. The club was bought for a price of 54 million pounds. Venky’s remains the first-ever Indian company to buy a professional football club. The club has planned to start a Blackburn Rovers Football Academy in the city to improve the standard of the game here. The new year might also witness the Blackburn Rovers team travelling to India for exhibition matches.

AND that wasn’t…
FOOTBALL STADIUM: The Pune District Football Association was supposed to have a state-of-the-art playground ready by August 2010,but the plan failed to materialise owing to incessant rainfall.

The rescheduled date in October was given as to inaugurate the pitch but the rains again played spoilsport. Now a revised date is set in the second week of January.

HOCKEY STADIUM: Khadki,which has given the nation over a dozen national hockey players is still waiting a proper training facility in the area. The proposal for an 18-crore astro turf ground is still with the Ministry of Defence for long now.

RUGBY TRAINING FACILITY: Pune is the hub for women’s rugby in India but still does not have a decent training pitch.

In October,the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had allotted 17 sites to be developed for various sports in the city. While allotments were made for table tennis,athletics,volleyball,basketball,khokho,kabaddi,cricket,handball,football,squash,rifle shooting and hockey,rugby was completely ignored.

BAN DID NOT WORK: Drugs like Lasix — a diuretic amongst the list of banned substances in the WADA list— is still available over the counter. This drug is used by many uneducated young wrestlers and weightlifters to lose weight quickly before trials.