Setting the record right
I saw a news item in your daily paper of Aug 16 entitled “Remembering Palmer” on the sports page. Mr. Hubert Arun Rozario in this article gave the news of Mr. Francis Donald Palmer passing away on Aug 8, 2007 in California. Mr. Rozario then went on to reminisce about him and ascribed some of his sporting achievements which in some ways were very incorrect. Mr. Rozario, of course out of his friend or colleague's admiration and his good will wrote, “Francis Palmer captained the first East Pakistan Provincial basketball team” He also wrote, “In 1960, Brother Thomas popularised basketball in East Pakistan.”
For the sake of informing your readers, I have to correct some of these wrong information given by Mr. Rozario. The first captain of the then East Pakistan basketball team, which participated in the Pakistan National Olympic Games held at Peshawar in the year 1958, was a young man named Rashiduddin Ahmed, now most famous and internationally reputed neurosurgeon Professor Rashiduddin Ahmed. He was at that time a student of 3rd year at Dhaka Medical College. This is known to sports organisers of that time and can be found in the file records of the East Pakistan Sports Federation, Pakistan Olympic Committee's records and in the records of world Olympic Committee. The Vice Captain of that team was my good friend Shamsul Alam now settled in the USA. Francis Palmer was not even a player of that team. Amongst the team members were late Mr. Anwar who later became a painter and teacher at the National Art Institute, and myself among others.
In addition, I would like to add that as a result of his performance in that Olympic, Prof. Rashiduddin Ahmad was selected for the Pakistan National Team and was called for training in Quetta in 1960 for preparation for the Asian Olympic games held in Tokyo in 1960. But Prof. Rashid's father didn't allow him to go because he was taking the Final MBBS examination in the same year of 1960. We all know all these very well because we were all (including Francis Palmer) students of St Gregory's High School, and it is true we all played together with Brother Thomas and he was our mentor and coach for Basketball. But the dates were not right. It was not the 1960's but early 50's.
I would like to add a bit more by pointing out that the first Basketball League of Dhaka was started by us, organised by the same persons mentioned above and Mr. Masudur Rahman who was initially a football organiser, was the senior person who patronised and helped us in the organisational matters.
I would like to end by saying that Prof. Rashiduddin Ahmad was President of Basketball Federation in the 1990's onwards for more than ten years, and also had captained the Bangladesh Davis Cup Team (Tennis) in the past, as Acting President and Senior Vice President for a while.
Rasiuddin Ahmad
An Ex Senior Vice President of Bangladesh Cricket Control Board, and General Secretary of Bangladesh Cricket Control Board
An Ex Senior Vice President of Bangladesh Cricket Control Board, and General Secretary of Bangladesh Cricket Control Board
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