Indoor hockey men’s champions Unam have been dealt a severe blow ahead of the new season which starts on Saturday, with the news that star striker Siabonga Martins will be banned for the whole of the indoor season. The mercurial, but controversial, Martins was banned for 10 matches after assaulting a player at the end of last year’s field league and was slapped with a ten-match ban by the Namibia Hockey Union’s disciplinary committee. He sat out the last match of last season but still has to sit out nine matches with the result that he will miss all of Unam’s scheduled eight matches in this season’s indoor league.
Martins’ ban follows an incident in Unam’s match against Wanderers in October last year when Martins clashed with Wanderers’ Billy Beukes as they both tried to gain possession of the ball. In the clash Martins hit Beukes’ in the face with his stick, resulting in a chipped tooth.
Unam hockey coach Erwin Handura launched an appeal against the ban but it was dismissed. Handura said the penalty was very harsh and that Martins had just retaliated after being tackled by Beukes.
“It was an act of retaliation after a rough tackle from behind by Beukes. It was more like a rugby tackle,” he said.
“It is clear they want us to lose, but it is only by default that they can beat us,” he added, referring to the ban that the NHU imposed.
The NHU’s disciplinary committee however ruled that it was not an act of retaliation but that Martins had assaulted Beukes. The president of the NHU, Jesse Schickerling, on enquiry, said that the penalty was not too harsh.
“I thought the penalty was fair. The disciplinary code has prescribed guidelines and penalties for certain offences and they were explained to Handura, who conceded that it was a reasonable penalty. I think it was very reasonable, bearing in mind that he could have been banned for life,” he said.
“The international motherbody does not tolerate violence in hockey and has very strict penalties in this regard,” he added.
The precociously talented Martins has often been at the centre of controversies and three seasons ago was also banned after coming to blows with Sedric Makati of DTS.
Besides that he has regularly been warned for foul play, although, Schickerling conceded, that it could be because he felt he was being targeted by opposition players.
Unam have dominated men’s hockey over the past decade, winning the Indoor League for the past nine years in a row and the field league nine times in the past ten years.
Handura said that even without Martins he was sure that Unam would maintain their dominance in the men’s Premier League.
“We have enough ammunition to beat any team. Tactically we are the best team in the league while we are also the fittest team, so I am confident that we will retain the title,” he said.
The Indoor Hockey League gets underway on Saturday at the DTS Club in Olympia with matches scheduled to take place in the men and women’s Premier League and First and Second Divisions.
This season, Namibia’s senior men and women’s teams, as well as the national U17 boys and girls teams have been included in the Indoor League to help them prepare for upcoming international competitions. The junior teams will compete in the Youth Olympic Games qualifiers in East London, South Africa in February, while the senior teams will compete in the Inter Provincial Tournament in South Africa in March.