First Rob Lathouwers Challenge Hockey Cup from tomorrow

LAHORE: The First Rob Lathouwers Challenge Cup will be staged at the National Hockey Stadium, Lahore on October 15 & 16.

First Rob Lathouwers Challenge Cup will be a 4-team event. The four teams include Lahore’s two prominent academies, Dar Hockey Academy and Rana Zaheer Academy plus two out station sides from Kasur and Farooqabad. It’s to be noted here that Rob Lathouwers is among the most respected umpires in hockey’s history. The Dutch man blew whistle in three Olympics, two World Cups and 11 editions of Champions Trophy. His last big appointment was the 1994 World Cup.

Rob has had close association with Pakistan whom he calls his second home. He has visited the country 12 times. Mostly, he came for umpiring assignments but in recent times it has been for the love for Pakistan hockey in general and Dar Hockey Academy in particular. In 2012, when the terrorism was at its peak, Rob Lathouwers in collaboration with Olympic gold medallist Taqueer Dar, the founder president of Dar Academy, brought a star studded Flying Dutch Veterans hockey team to Pakistan which played three well attended matches in Lahore. Then early this year, he played an important role in enabling PHF arrange a tour of International XI which played two matches in Karachi and Lahore. Dar Hockey Academy colts’ teams have made five tours of Europe since 2010. Each time they played in Holland. It was Rob’s MOP hockey club which hosted the Dar HA every time in the beautiful town of Vught near Eindhoven.

Rob is in Lahore these days. Among his other activities, he conducted an intensive hockey clinic for Pakistani umpires arranged by Dar Hockey Academy and Sports Board Punjab.

To acknowledge Rob Lathouwers’ great services to Pakistan hockey, Dar Academy had decided to initiate an annual tournament after his name.