Federation Cup championship from today

By Rajshekhar Rao

RENUKOOT, APRIL 8. This sleepy township with a population of just over a lakh known for its aluminium production, will wake up for the Federation Cup volleyball championship, which gets underway at the Hindalco sports complex here from Sunday.

The Inder Chand Aggarwal tournament, which is among the top privately organised tournaments under the auspices of the Volleyball Federation of India (VFI), has been held here for the past two decades and more. People here are known to turn up in large numbers to see the game, and each tournament is looked forward to.

Thus, this venue is not new to the fraternity, a phase of the National league too having been held here two years ago. In fact, this being the silver jubilee year of the Aggarwal tournament, the prestigious Federation Cup was allotted to this town.

The clay court in an open arena gives a somewhat rustic touch to the event and even though there is no indoor stadium of international standard, the enthusiasm makes up for that.

The matches of this tournament will be held in the evenings, so that people can get back from work and throng the stadium. And of course, the heat during day time will not be a pleasure to play in either.

The evenings may add some life to this industrial town in Sonbhadra District, very near to the Madhya Pradesh and Bihar borders. But that will only be after the players settle down following their tiring journeys from different parts of the country.

Cochin Port Trust (CPT) and Southern Railway will defend the men's and women's titles, respectively, in the league- cum- knockout format. Eight teams are in the fray in the men's section and six in the women's section, though there was the fear of the teams from Karnataka not turning up. The teams had confirmed participation but have failed to turn up as per intimation, leaving the organisers in a spot of bother.

Last year's runner-up in the men's section, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) has arrived, with coach Palaniappan exuding confidence, having come with a full strength team. But his team has not had too many happy outings against CPT over the past few seasons and will have to look out for this team. Punjab Police, which has largely fed the Punjab team, which is the National champion as well as the National Games champion, too is a force to reckon with.

The other teams in the fray are Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), Indian Army, South Central Railway, Border Security Force (BSF) and AGOR Club from Karnataka.

In the women's section, apart from last year's champion Southern Railway, South Central Railway and last year's runner-up KSEB too are good teams, with NSS College (Karamana, Kerala), West Bengal Club and Spikers Club from Karnataka completing the line-up.

The draw and the schedule was still in the process of being worked out by the organisers. The Uttar Pradesh Volleyball Association Secretary, Dr. N.D. Sharma, who is also the Treasurer of the VFI, informed that they were waiting for all the teams to arrive.

With the matches scheduled to be held only from 6 p.m. on Sunday, there is enough time to finalise things for the eight- day tournament.

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Section  : Sport
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