MERRY MEADOWS - Chapter 8 - Master Joachim Hey and the Sindelfingen saga

Master Kang introduced us to masters Chang and Kim, both 5th Dans visiting Pakistan for short durations, and master Joachim Hey, a 3rd Dan German working with the German embassy in Islamabad as the Cultural Counsellor, who became a good friend, and who hosted my stay at his beautiful home in Bonn on one of my visits to Germany with my wife. But before that master Hey pulled a fast one on me, which I let him.

By 1979 we had developed a well oiled Taekwondo team of black belts about who master Kang felt confident enough to test their performance against the best in the world. One day he informed me of the World Taekwondo Championships due to be held that year in the German town of Sindelfingen, near Stuttgart, the hometown of Mercedes Benz. He felt that we could make a contest of it in at least six weight categories, if not seven. I was electrified.

The bad news was that we would have to pay our way through, with the German hosts treating us to just the Championship dinner. Even in 1979 it cost an arm and a leg to make the trek to Germany. Taekwondo had as yet not gained membership of the Pakistan Olympic Association, so any hope of funding from the Pakistan Sports Board was out of the question. All eyes turned to me as the promoter and chief financial benefactor of the Taekwondo enterprise.

While the monies had been coming in at a fabulous rate from the Taekwondo enterprise, like a good Muslim I had been keeping the monies flowing to the benefit of the Taekwondo fraternity, and the bare minimum Taekwondo bank balance bore testimony to that fact.

Not deterred, I immediately launched an event brochure for the trip, and set about garnering corporate support and collecting advertisements to subsidize the trip. Even so, ability to pay for the trip would decide a team member’s eligibility, and not just pure merit. This somewhat weakened the contingent that finally collected at the Karachi Airport to board the Egypt Air flight to Frankfurt via Cairo, with a night spent wandering the Nile embankments and drooling over belly dancers, and transiting from 42 degrees Celsius in Cairo to minus 4 degrees Celsius in Frankfurt.

Understandably, master Hey, being German and a diplomat to boot, was our main organizer and coordinator. The World Taekwondo Championship was publishing a high prestige brochure to mark the occasion, with all the participating countries and their contingents listed in detail. Master Kang was naturally listed as the Coach of the Pakistan Team. That just left room for two other officials, the Manager and the Medical Doctor. At a functional level master Hey was managing the team, and without him we would have been quite lost in Germany. I was fully aware of that fact, but satisfied that as a German diplomat in Pakistan his role in the team would be unofficial, and I would get the prestigious Manager’s listing.

Master Joachim Hey, however, was by now a fully integrated Pakistani, his German birth and diplomatic credentials notwithstanding. He was master Kang’s disciple and best friend as well, and an integral part of the gang whenever he was in Karachi. Whenever we traveled up to Islamabad his residence became our hangout, with an endless supply of chilled German beer, and his drawing and dining rooms converted into dormitory accommodation. So when Hey told me he would like to be officially slotted as the Manager of the Pakistan team, I was momentarily nonplused.

Pakistan's Taekwondo Team in Sindlefingen (Germany) for the World Championships (1979) - Left-to-Right: Riaz Chotani, Ghani Tabalat (with a bruised eye suffered that morning), myself, Qais Mohammed, and Abdul Ghani. Masters Kang and Hey not in the picture.

Good times in Sindelfingen! Myself, Ghani Tabalat, and Riaz Chotani.

In the global Taekwondo hierarchy master Hey was even less than insignificant. He was a nonentity. As a 3rd Dan he may have commanded clout and stature in Pakistan, but at the venue of the World Championship he would be utterly and completely swamped in a sea brimful of master instructors and grand masters, all 5th Dan and above. Even master Kang with his 5th Dan was decidedly tentative and full of anticipation at the thought of going to Germany where he would meet his own trainers and teachers, and their teachers.
But as Manager of the Pakistan team Hey would get to attend all the Championship’s management meetings, conferences, workshops and seminars, and take part in animated discourse on how to promote Taekwondo and make it a part of the Olympic movement.

There was no denying that as a member of the German Foreign Service, and possibly a member of the German Secret Service, ‘Manager’ Hey would gain priceless ingress into the global Taekwondo community that contained the who’s who of the global high and mighty in all spheres of life, enabling him to add invaluably to his international network of connections and contacts, and perhaps even be able to influence and steer the future course of Taekwondo’s worldwide development, and turn it into a priceless intel gathering platform for his king and country. It could well turn out to be for him the ultimate win-win outcome, positively impacting his professional role as a modern day James Bond, as well as promote his private Taekwondo agenda.

All these thoughts occur to me now as I chew the cud in retrospect. Back then I just felt a surge of pride at the thought of a German diplomat willing to risk official reprimand for the privilege of being the Pakistan team’s official Manager. That of course meant that I would be designated ‘Medical Doctor’, a patently false declaration keeping my training as an economist in mind. In Sindelfingen I kept my distance from the other team doctors, and when cornered on a couple of occasions sought refuge in the mumbo jumbo of spiritual healing.


Riaz Chotani, Qais Mohammed, and the Jordanians Ghani Tabalat and Abdul Ghani comprised the four competitors in the team. Of these only Qais Mohammed fulfilled the dual criteria of merit and ability to pay, and he earned his stripes by going the full distance with his Korean opponent in the semifinals and losing on points in a split decision. His victor then went on to win the gold medal via knockout.

Merry Meadows - Memoirs of an entrepreneur

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