A Colts affinity
I was associated with the club for ten years, three as a full-time player. Although I haven’t been physically associated with the club for fifty years, I feel like a lifetime Colt. Sentimentally, I have never left the Colts which is the only sports club I have ever belonged to. This history of the Colts is my way of expressing my indissoluble affinity with the club.
In the shadow of Foenander
The advantage that S.P. Foenander had over all the Sri Lankan historians who followed in his wake, including myself, is that he either attended or kept, records of every Colts game since inception up to about 1940. A modern-day Colts historian doesn’t have access to old scorebooks because they weren’t archived and preserved. Richard Alles kept a scrapbook of the games he played in which covers about 13 years. Nobody else, cricketer or historian, associated with the club, has done something similar in the past fifty years.
When Eddie Melder passed away club officials approached his son for access to his records. But his memorabilia couldn’t be located.
When Archibald Pereira was scoring for the Colts, he oversaw the preservation of the scorebooks from which statistical analyses of club performances over a specific period can be made. Again, from what I gather, his collection has gone missing.
Until 2014 I wasn’t inspired to compose a history of the Colts. How I wish that inspiration arrived twenty-years earlier when the likes of Walwin Goonetilleke, Eddie Melder and Ranjit Samarasekera were still around.
Foenander’s book will always be the core of any history of the Colts. My job is to gather memorabilia and add value to them and in doing so enlarge Foenander’s effort to encapsulate the present and near past.
Building on my legacy
I had a large hand in in the compilation of the club centenary souvenir. But the souvenir of 1973 was by no means a development of the monumental work done by Foenander which came out in 1941, although it drew heavily from his book.
What motivated me in 2014 was the need to rework Foenander’s history and take it forward. I have succeeded in bringing the story up to the club’s sesquicentennial which fell in 2023. I have provided depth to the narrative and brought to the surface material that had remained untapped. I have created a strong platform from which to explore the recent decades and bring them up to date. I have structured the chapters in a way that allows fresh material to be incorporated into extant chapters or to generate new chapters that fit into the overall organisation of the historical narrative.
A work in progress
This history is very much a work in progress which is searching for fuel from persons either connected to the Colts or have information related to the club. It has been placed on the web as an incentive for people to contribute to its development and fill in gaps. What is on the web will change from time to time depending on the unearthing of new material. Information can take any of the following forms – news clippings, photos, fixture cards, anecdotes, averages, and impressionistic accounts of one’s time with the club. Even without external input I will continue to polish the narrative and the formatting. For instances I will be scouring the web for scorecards of every first division final the Colts has played in. And I will improve the presentation of news clippings. And so, the chapters on the website will be continuously refreshed. This is an ambitious piece of work which requires close vigilance. But I will be taking frequent breaks from the project to recharge my batteries and to return to the history refreshed.
My efforts so far have been based on squeezing information out of an eclectic collection of sources and piecing together such information to develop a coherent narrative. It is presently broad enough to have something of interest to everyone who will access it. Hopefully, it will entice people to come on board.
Widespread dissemination
I urge all of you to disseminate the link to my draft far and wide. It doesn’t matter if some persons receive the link twice. It is of paramount importance that as many people are encouraged to provide feedback.
Even non-Colts sympathisers will benefit from observing how, in the absence of substantial statistical information, a coherent history of a club can still be developed through anecdotal information and a wide ranging of memorabilia. Ultimately, there is no substitute for dedication to an institution and a passion for history.
Page numbering
Although the size of a chapter is potentially non-static, and additional pages to a particular chapter will require the numbering on every subsequent chapter to be changed manually, there is continuity in chapter numbering. The listings on the contents pages mirror the actual document numbering.
A service to the club
Despite the club officialdom’s lack of acknowledgement of, and support for, my initiative, I have continued with my work and strived to be as detailed and comprehensive as I possibly can. My passion and motivation are driven by a belief in my capability to provide a product that no one else can or will. If do not sustain the momentum to the end, the only loser will be the club.
Accessing the historical draft
The history draft has fifty-two chapters and when the appendices and references are added, total 816 pages. Each section can be accessed by flicking the appropriate button. It is best that no one tries to read the history in one sitting. I urge the reader to open chapters at random and initially browse through them. If the chapter captures the reader’s interest it will no doubt be read in detail. Tackle the narrative at one’s own pace.
Hopefully, by obtaining a feel for the dynamics of the narrative, readers might be inspired to become stakeholders by contributing information and feedback. Over fifty-two chapters there is bound to be something for everybody.
The uniqueness of each chapter
My chapters do not follow a standard pattern. I try to add value to whatever form the appropriate material takes and organise it in an appropriate manner. As a result, the chapters are dissimilar in shape, structure, and composition. The narrative is very experimental in that the material at hand isn’t uniform and I am constantly searching for ways in which to add value to material and present them in a coherent manner that engages the reader.
I want to constantly regale the reader with information he/she is unaware of. I have been surprised by the range of insights and facts that have emerged from my research. I want to entice the reader into the realms of the Colts odyssey. Hopefully, the reader will be beguiled by the photos, prose, facts and opinion. If some people find the narrative a semi-encyclopedia of Ceylon cricket and provide images of Ceylon/Sri Lankan society, it will indicate that the Colts story is much more than a description of a cricket club.
Information gaps
The development of my narrative is very much a case of something created on the go because I could never be certain as to how chapters would take shape. I gained access to material in fits and starts.
In September 2023 I felt that I had reached the end of my tether and the story of the past fifty years could only be summarised and possibly returned to later, providing that persons with club knowledge came to the party and released material.
Chapter 42, which described off-field events, was going to cover the seventies, along with a chapter on the club’s successes in the Donovan Andree tourney. The last four decades was going to be briefly referred to with the caveat that a detailed description of the eras would constitute volume II of the Colts history.
However, by February of 2024, five months later, I had come up with and eight additional chapters (43 – 50) totalling 149 pages, that brought the history up to the present.
This was made possible by carefully analysing the following –
News clippings provided by Kumar Ramanathan
Notes from discussions had with important club figures in 2016
The 125th club anniversary souvenir
Photos taken of framed group photos that hung on the club wall
Information available on the internet
This isn’t to say that my coverage is perfect. There is much more out there I haven’t had, and denied, access to. If I was able to correspond with those involved with the club in the past four decades, I would surely have been more thorough.
When one engages in a project of this magnitude there is always the fear that nothing new would emerge. But this wasn’t a problem with material up to the early eighties. Unfortunately, I haven’t received similar help regarding the last forty years of the club.
Something for everybody
I have strived to appeal to a diverse body of readers. If a reader is only interested in what happened in the club in the first two decades since independence there is plenty to interest that person. The same would apply to someone whose interest is limited to the recent decades of the club, or in specific decades.
I have attempted to stretch the boundaries of what is permissible in a history of a particular entity. Hence, two chapters are devoted to the adverts which appeared in two books by S.P. Foenander and the social and economic structure prevailing at specific times is drawn out.
Chapters to accustom readers to the narrative
Someone interested in sports journalism should check out chapter 23 which is dedicated to S.P. Foenander. It includes tributes paid to him by well-known journalists in the year of his passing.
Hence, surprise yourself by browsing through chapters at leisure, and locating topics that engage you. For instance, chapters 16 to 18 discuss the difference between an icon and a stalwart, a very important distinction when it comes to acknowledging Colt’s heroes.
Colts has been bedeviled by controversies and disputes that have threatened to pull it apart. (Refer chapters 28, 45 and 53.) That the club has recovered from these squabbles and been the stronger for them is a concurrent theme in the narrative. This is what makes the club so fascinating and riveting. And it reminds the reader of the importance of stalwarts and the heroic role they have played in making it possible for the club to have a history worth writing about.
This a story about the Colts. It is also story of the country it exists in, for which the club is a metaphor. The narrative is wrought with themes of kinship, social change, rules that affect tight results, nostalgia, community, triumph and survival. Hence, it is much more than a story about a cricket club. For the Colts story mirrors the trials and tribulations of life in general.
The Colts is a community, and this is what makes it unique. A community that extends back and forward into the present. I knew many of the Colts stalwarts whose links with the club went back to the thirties. They in turn knew many of the club stalwarts of the golden age. I want the most recent generations of Colts to add to the cavalcade of nostalgia. My narrative is wreathed in sentiment and intended to take readers on an emotional journey.
A unique product
The SSC is the most successful club in Sri Lankan cricket. It is followed by the NCC, Bloomfield and the CCC. Yet, of the four clubs only the SSC has a book written about it in recent times.
In 1993 S.S. Perera wrote and compiled a history of the SSC. He himself admitted that the club had not kept records and he had to do considerable research of his own.
The book on the SSC has all the deficiencies of a commemorative publication. It isn’t broken up into chapters on a chronological and thematic basis. While there is plenty of interesting statistical information and reminiscing by members, the book itself is a hotchpotch of information. Half the publication is composed of adverts and the print has been made small to create space for the former.
While Foenander’s 1941 book provides a starting point for any Colts historian, which obviates the need to gather material from old newspapers, the eighty-two years since then still must be accounted for and described. The 1973 club publication barely scratched the surface of what took place in the previous thirty years. Likewise, the 1998 publication could have provided greater detail on what took place in the previous twenty-five years. Finally, although Foenander’s book informs about ten chapters of my work, his material has been considerably enhanced by material he was probably unaware of (e.g. Tommy Kelaart’s memorabilia) and information from other sources. And I have reorganised his material to accord with modern writing styles, historical analysis, presentation, and reader expectations.
The SSC publication had the advantage of contributions from club members. The SSC also has large honor boards which are easy to maintain and draw information from. If I was based in Colombo, I could have spent time at the Colts Cricket Club and received help from people on the ground, my work would have been easier and the results more thorough.
Hence, I call upon all those connected to the club, directly or indirectly, to come to the party and provide comprehensive feedback. Your efforts will make the Colts the number one cricket club in Sri Lanka for historical narratives.
My regrets
Before I left for Australia Douglas Lieversz gifted me with his copy of Foenander’s book on the Colts. He was 67 years old then and not experiencing intimations of mortality. In addition, I was distancing myself from the Colts and going to a country where that book would resonate with few, despite it being a cricket playing country. He nonetheless remarked that I would appreciate the book more than anyone else he knew.
My uncle would never have envisaged what I have come up with. There were times when I found it hard to maintain enthusiasm for the project. But I soldiered on not wishing to betray the faith my uncle placed in me.
I wish Ranjit Samarasekera was still around. He would have been delighted with my product. Sadly, in 2016, my first visit to the country after commencing the Colts history, it wasn’t possible to communicate with him.
Trevor Jansz kept inquiring as to the status of my book on the Colts. I would have liked to have completed what I am sending out prior to his passing, But it is not possible to turbocharge a carefully wrought narrative which ought to include as much detail as possible.
I also think of people like Walwin Goonatilleke, Rajasingham, Eddie Melder, Chanmugam and many others stalwarts of similar vein, sadly no longer with us. They would have been startled by the renewal of my connections with the club in such a dramatic fashion. With the exception of people like Trevor Jansz, Colts members who leave the country link up with other associations that supersede their links with the Colts. But to me, the Colts is the only club I identify with, despite not belonging to it officially for 51 years. Hence, it was inevitable that a project of this nature would take place once I retired.
Penultimate draft
Calling this draft, Colombo Colts Cricket Club, the unauthorised history – penultimate draft, is a recognition that my history is incomplete and requires further input from stakeholders and interested persons, not because it lacks the club’s imprimatur. For instance, women’s sport (cricket and hockey) at the club is not adequately covered due to a lack of information.
If I can comprehensively cover the last forty-years I will have a complete history that can be considered worthy of publication. Its title will then revert to what it is on the cover page, namely, COLTS CRICKET, A history revisited, Sri Lanka’s oldest cricket club. It will come complete with indexing. But I want to see what is out there first and not rush into producing a book that is not up to date.
In a draft of fifty-two chapters that has involved unprecedented amounts of labour, the best one can do is to produce something that looks complete and final in terms of structure, language, and presentation. Something which grips the reader and is easy to polish and refine. That is the stage the narrative currently is at. It is near complete and near perfect.
It is your voice
Become stakeholders in my project by contributing to it. Make compilations of your memories and experiences. What I have done so far is superior to anything associated with other clubs in Sri Lanka, even those that have enjoyed unparalleled tournament success. With your help we can create something that will stand the test of time and make us the envy of other clubs. Let’s together develop a product that will people to even non-Sri Lankans and non-cricketers.
Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed into bringing my project to its current state. But there are two people whose roles have been indispensable. One such person is Richard Kelaart, the grandson of the legendary Tommy Kelaart, who is probably the supreme Colts icon. Not only did he provide me with everything in his grandfather’s archives, since 2022 he has been jealously scrutinising every chapter of mine and responding with professional feedback. In the absence of his involvement, I would have lacked the incentive to persevere.
My wife Karen created the website you have accessed. Being a published author she was able to accurately ascertain my needs and come up with an appropriate product.
Colombo Colts Cricket Club 