Today’s generation of sports fans in Chennai who are used to international play-offs and starry Indian premier league matches may not be aware that not so long ago Madras remained a back bencher when it came to conducting important sports events, especially of the non-cricketing kind.

Lack of infrastructure and facilities meant that only Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi got to host major sporting meets.Not only that, it also meant Madras lost out to even smaller cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad in the conduct of mega sports events.All that Madras had was a dilapidated old Nehru stadium in Park Town and a couple of inadequate indoor facilities.Events like the Nehru Gold Cup football tournament, the World Cup hockey tournament, the Masters badminton and the World Table Tennis Championship always bypassed the city , which had to be content with hosting a leg of the satellite tennis tournaments at the Egmore stadium or the national football championship at the archaic Nehru stadium.

A start was made with the conduct of the Nehru Gold Cup football tournament at the newly built Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in January , 1993. The new facility , the dream child of then Tamil Nadu Football Association secretary C R Viswanathan, was of international standards. A senior journalist colleague, who had covered football across the world, was amazed at the facilities in the stadium, when he was covering the Nehru Gold Cup.

But there is little doubt that it was the South Asian Federation Games in December 1995 and the TN government’s initiative to prepare the city for the event, which marked a turning point in the sporting ethos of the southern metropolis. For Chennai sports lovers, the SAF Games will continue to be the high point of the sports organisation in the city. The impressive Nehru stadium was host to the main football and athletics events but then the other stadia built for the SAF Games were no less breathtaking. Through 1994 and 1995 the city acquired several more stadia, all in keeping with the highest international standards. The Mayor Radhakrishnan Hockey Stadium in Egmore underwent a metamorphosis. A new astro turf was laid, bigger stands were built and the venue was fit enough not only to host the prestigious hockey event of the SAF Games but also the Champions Cup hockey tournament the next year. An indoor stadi um close to the Nehru stadium was the venue of volleyball, basketball, badminton and table tennis events and the Velachery aquatic complex was home to all the water sports contests. Among the other stadiums, the SDAT Tennis stadium in Nungambakkam, which hosted the tennis event of the SAF Games, has been on the international map. It is the official venue for the international professional tennis event -Chennai Open -as well as the smaller tournaments like the Challengers and Futures Tour events.

It was feared that after the SAF Games, these imposing stadia would be white elephants. The sporting community emphasised that the facilities should not only be maintained but also used on a regular basis, if the state was to have a healthy sporting culture. A number of events have been conducted over the years at these facilities, but there is little doubt that more competitions have to be staged and funding should be available for maintenance and upgradation of these venues. In a step forward, the setting up of the Indian Squash Academy , a few years ago, has further raised the standards of the city. This has only embellished the rich sporting traditions that Chennai has always been famous for.