Name P. Radhakrishnan | Role Football player | |
P. M. Radhakrishnan (6 September 1946 – 18 March 2010) was an Indian football player, coach, referee and administrator. As a player, he participated in many tournaments, including representing Tamil Nadu in the Senior National Championship for the Santhosh Trophy, in 1973.
Contents
- Biography
- Football Player 19641976
- Football Coaching and Refereeing qualifications
- Sports Injury and Coaching Career
- Football Coach 19762010
- Football Administrator
- Womens Football
- In Memory
- References
After a knee injury ended his playing career, he completed the National Institute of Sports (NIS) Diploma in 1977 and then the FIFA Coaching ‘A’ License 1987 in Germany, and went on to coach many teams, including the Reserve Bank of India team in the Chennai Football Association Senior Division, which he led for over 10 years.
Biography
Paraikattae Melaveedu Radhakrishnan was born on 6 September 1946 in Chennai to parents Chokkanathan Krishnan and Kuttiammad. His maternal uncle introduced him to football, taking Radhakrishnan and his younger brother to the local football matches. Radhakrishnan married Kumari, a native of Kerala on 9 December 1972. They had 2 boys.
Radhakrishnan went to St. Gabriels School as a youngster, dabbling in quite a few sporting activities. Apart from his mainstream athletics and footballing exploits, he was also an amateur exponent in pool, table tennis and carrom. He was also an amateur dramatist who dabbled in local theatre adaptations of Shakespearan plays.
Radhakrishnan was an excellent student in St. Gabriels, GeorgeTown, with several distinction and First Class achievements including his PUC (Pre University Course). He then enrolled in Thyagaraya college and graduated with honours in B.Sc. Zoology. He followed this with a Post Graduation in Philosophy (M.A.) at Pachaiyappa's College.
Football Player (1964–1976)
Football Coaching and Refereeing qualifications
Sports Injury and Coaching Career
Radhakrishnan injured his right knee cartilage in 1976, and had to undergo corrective surgery on his knee. This cut short his playing career. He turned to coaching after a 10-month Football Coaching Course at NIS (National Institute of Sports). He continued to upgrade his skills, the foremost of which was the 'A' Coaching License awarded by the German Football Association in 1987. He was one of the 2 Indian Coaches recommended by AIFF (All India Football Federation) to represent India in this prestigious 1 month evaluative training and certification. He was awarded the 'A' License Certification, which certified him to coach international teams. The course was presided over by Franz Beckenbauer (Germany World Cup Winner as Player-1974 and Coach-1990) and Holger Osieck (German National Team - Technical Director under Beckenbauer).
Football Coach (1976–2010)
Radhakrishnan coached several individuals who became outstanding football players:
Football Administrator
During his lengthy tenure (1969–2003) in Reserve Bank of India, Radhakrishnan was actively involved as an office bearer in several aspects of the RBRC(Reserve Bank Recreation Club), primary of which was running and administering Sports teams of RBI during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. This included National Level tournaments apart from the Annual Inter-RBI Sporting events and the Annual Inter-Bank Sports events conducted by Indian Banks Association. This later involved closely working with the Trade Unions and Officers/Clerks Associations to promote and safeguard employee interests and sports / recreational activities.
Women's Football
In the mid -1980s, a core group founded the Women's Football movement in Tamil Nadu. It started off with Ramakrishnan as the primary coach at the Ramakrishna School grounds at T Nagar, with the encouragement of the school's principal and the local SDAT Coach and a few others from the mainstream men’s football.
Regular coaching sessions were held on the weekends at the RKM School grounds. It later shifted to Quaid-E-Millet Women's College and eventually found its home in the YMCA College grounds.
Gradually, city schools and colleges began to send their promising women athletes over to the football training grounds. This was quite an achievement since there was no formal footballing organization or a clear roadmap for women footballers at that stage. Radhakrishnan had a unique way of applying the same standards to all the girls and extracted a solid team performance and team spirit within all his teams. He continued to conduct regular coaching camps for women under the aegis of several clubs that he managed and under the Chennai Football Association banner.
In Memory
P M Radhakrishnan died unexpectedly on 18 March 2010 due to a massive cardiac arrest. A condolence meeting was organized by the Chennai Football Association in early April 2010.
An Inter Football-Academy Tournament - P M Radhakrishnan Memorial Trophy and the 1st P M Radhakrishnan Memorial Inter-School football tournament were conducted in May 2010 and July 2010 respectively.
The 4th P.M.Radhakrishnan Memorial Inter-school football tournament was held on July 13 & 14, 2013 at F3 Grounds(next to Tholkappiya Poonga and Ambedkar Memorial), Chennai. 22 Top schools participated in this 5-a-side tournament for School boys in the U-17 and U-12 categories.
This was organized by Sportz Unlimited and funded by P.M.Radhakrishnan Sports Foundation(A Registered Charity). St.Josephs won both the categories, while Padma Seshadri Bala Bavan School K K Nagar and Abacus Montessori finished runners-up in the U-17 and U-12 categories.