The Norman Park, in Bromley, Kent was packed with Srilankan Tamils for the 8th Tamil Sports Festival. The event organised by the British Tamil's Association was sponsored by NatWest for the second time, and was held on the 27th of July 2003. This annual event attracts thousands of Tamil people from all over UK and caters for all age groups and is a fantastic family day out. The day's sports programme consisted of Athletics, Cricket, football, Netball, Swimming and Volleyball. In addition to these a unique atmosphere was created by the blend of food, drink, trade stalls and various entertainment for kids.

As usual on this special day thousands filled Norman park in Bromley bringing a carnival atmosphere to this part of Kent. The Bromley council has supported this event in the past years and is turning out to be a popular venue. Rameez Raja the former Pakistan cricket captain was the chief guest and on his message said,
"It is heartening to see so many people coming together in a joyful celebration of sports and culture".

The day's events got off to a shaky start with weather playing a major role. But, the Sun did not want to dampen the day and came to the rescue in all its glory to help the day's proceedings. This year twenty teams took part in the cricket, nineteen teams in volleyball and nine teams in the netball. A combined netball team from North and East of Sri Lanka graced this year's event as a result of the current peace situation in Sri Lanka.

The other cricketing attraction was an international match between Celebrities and Elam Tamils. The Elam Tamils team was captained by Sanjayan Thuraisingam a current Canadian International team member. The Srilankan born cricketer came to prominent in the ICC trophy and was a member of the Canadian World cup team. The Tamil Sports Festival souvenir had many picturesque photographs of seasides, rivers and other beauty spots in North & East of Sri Lanka. It also carried pictures of the participating teams and advertisements by many trading organisations.

This event is not only famous for sports but also for the food and drink. The food stall (Unavakam) was serving so many varieties of food. Most of the food was prepared on-site and was served hot to everyone. The food stall was busy from start of the event and continued to serve items like Rolls, Fried and barbequed chicken, Masala Dosai, Appam, Fried fish, Kottu rotti, Odiyal Kool (seafood soup) and other meat and vegetarian dishes. There were also snack and sherbet (sarbath) and ice cream stalls that were filled with kids and adults.

The beer stall was quite popular and served bites (hot snacks) to go with the drinks. The DJ in the beer stall kept on churning some popular dance music to the request of the crowd and some youngsters readily showed off their best dance moves to the onlookers. It was an unique atmosphere, in order to believe it; you had to be there. The event was organised brilliantly for the crowd, with hundreds of people giving their time and effort for a charitable cause. The organisers and the volunteer's need a special pat on their backs for their marathon effort.

Now, coming to the sports results...

In the cricket final Jaffna Hindu College faced Jaffna Central, renewing the rivalry. The rivalry between these schools in sports events is well known, and, in a nail biting finish Jaffna Central beat Jaffna Hindu College.

The London Sri Murugan team faced E17 in the Football Cup Finals. E17 beat London Sri Murugan convincingly by 4-2.

In the Netball Final North & East Team from Sri Lanka faced Chundukuli Girls the North & East team won the match easily by 20-12. In the Exhibition Match North & East Team from Sri Lanka faced the British Tamil Girls. Again the team from North & East showed their dominance by beating the British girls by 23-10. The North & East netball team will also take part in Mahajana open day, which will be held on 9th of August.

The prizes were awarded to all the teams and to winners of the individual events. Big TV screens in the middle of the park showed most of the events as it happened, allowing everyone to enjoy it from, where they were in the park. The event as usual came to an end with a fantastic fireworks display. All in all, it was a magnificent end for a fantastic day and all for good charitable causes. Were you one of those unfortunate ones to miss this year's event? If so don't make that mistake again,
the ninth Tamil Sports Festival will be held at the same venue on Sunday 25 July 2004.