Garudas Sports Club has survived a period of fifty years in existence and is continuing to be involved in sports activities in Sri Lanka.
Driven by the Motto of the club, ‘Service before Self’ every member dedicates himself or herself to promote sports mainly among the under privileged youth in the country.
These sports persons wait for opportunities to display their hidden talents and skills in whatever sport they were fortunate enough to pursue.
The members of the club, a majority of them girls from leading schools, are silently enduring the hardships they have to face to pursue sports activities of their liking.
It was the all-round sportsman in Nizam Hajireen who introduced women’s soccer in Sri Lanka for the first time on May 1, 1973.
He formed a women’s soccer team that had a turnout of 36 girls from Visakha, St. Paul’s, St. Bridget’s, Kolonnawa Vidyalaya and a few other schools from Colombo.
Garudas SC also pioneered women’s Sepak Takraw in Sri Lanka in 2001 and by 2003 emerged as a formidable team that entered the King’s Cup Sepak Takraw championship in Bangkok for the first time in 2003 and won a bronze medal in the Premier league group.
With Sepak Takraw being the main sport that Garudas SC is promoting, their president Nizam Hajireen is pursuing the idea of entering youth teams (girls and boys), in international competitions in the near future. (TBR)