Player sketch: Leslie Hammond

Name: Leslie Charles Hammond
Born: March 4, 1905 in Madras, India
Died: June 26, 1955, in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Position: Left back
Olympic journey: 1928 Amsterdam, 1932 Los Angeles
Medals: Two gold

The tall defender might not have got a game in the 1928 Olympics if the captain, Jaipal Singh, had better travel plans, or not left the team in a huff after a spat with the management just before the final league match. Hammond and Jaipal were both contenders to the left back position and it was the former who made it his own. Hammond played three matches out of five in the Amsterdam Games as part of a defence that did not concede a goal in the whole tournament.

In the process he also improved his game. The tall defender had been described as ‘thoroughly safe’ but ‘certainly slow’ after his selection to the All-India team following the 1928 Inter-Provincial Tournament in Calcutta, where he had played for the eventual champions, United Provinces (The Statesman, March 8, 1928, page 13). Four years later, Hammond was one of only four players who retained their places for the 1932 Olympics (the others were Richard James Allen, Broome Eric Pinniger and Dhyan Chand). By then Hammond was being praised not only for his height and reach, but also for his ability to cover ground quickly with long legs.

“Europe voted him among the best backs in the world when he played for India in the (1928) Olympic Games,” wrote The Statesman on March 13, 1932. He kept up the good work in Los Angeles.

One of seven siblings, Leslie Charles Hammond was born to William Charles Hammond and his second wife, Mary Jane Street, in Madras (Mundia.com. Profile and family tree of Leslie Charles Hammond). The baptism record of Leslie Charles Hammond on April 9, 1905 in Madras, India, gives his mother’s name simply as ‘Mary’ (Ancestry.com. India, Select Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014). He probably studied at Oak Grove School in Mussoorie (Anglos in the Wind, 5, no. 20, page 38) before joining La Martiniere in Lucknow (1917-1920). There is also evidence to suggest that Leslie Charles Hammond and his two younger brothers, Gerald Hammond and Basil John Hammond, were in St Francis College in Lucknow in 1921 (Mundia.com. Sources for profile of Leslie Charles Hammond).

Hammond worked for the East Indian Railway and played in its hockey team (The Statesman, March 13, 1932). He got married to Charlotte Ann Vincent, daughter to Joseph John Vincent, at the St Paul’s Church in Dilkusha, Lucknow, on November 15, 1934. Charlotte Ann Vincent was nineteen at the time (Ancestry.com. India, Select Marriages, 1792-1948 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014). In the marriage certificate, Leslie Hammond’s occupation is given as Chargeman, Carriage Wagon Works, E.I. Railway ((Mundia.com. Sources for profile of Leslie Charles Hammond).

Leslie Hammond later immigrated to Australia.