Tributes have been paid to Wolverhampton hockey icon Sucha Singh Johal, who has died aged 93.

He was the founder of United Brothers, the first British Punjabi hockey club, which was set up around 50 years ago.

In addition to playing for and managing the team, Sucha also played hockey for Punjab, India. This included tours in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

Some of his teammates in the United Brothers played for India in the 1964 Olympics, which won gold.

Sucha’s funeral will take place in Essington, near Wolverhampton, on July 23, 2024.

Players from United Brothers will attend in their hockey club uniforms to honour their former manager.

They have also decided to end the club in Sucha’s honour.

Sucha Singh Johal grew up in Chak 365, in Montgomery District in Baar, which is now in Pakistan.

He went on to become a lecturer at Khalsa College in Jalandhar, before moving to the UK in the early 1960s.

After moving to the UK, Sucha worked at Goodyear in Wolverhampton, worked as a bus driver and moved to the USA for a brief period.

A spokesperson for the British Sikh Federation (BSF) said:

“In the 1960s there was a lot of racial discrimination in the UK, so that even well-educated Asian and Black Ethnic (ABLE) minorities could not get better-paid jobs commensurate with their qualifications, and they had to do less well-paid manual jobs instead.

“As such, Sucha Singh Johal worked in Wolverhampton at Goodyear Tyres, Qualcast, and also as a bus driver.”

Sucha also took part in several BSF campaigns in the UK on human rights and equality matters during his life.

That included the exemption for turban-wearing Sikhs from requiring to wear hard hats on construction sites in the 1980s, which was later passed in law under Margaret Thatcher’s government.

Other campaigns he supported included the need for a BBC Punjabi language service and the need for a national BBC Asian music radio station.

Kashmir Singh, from BSF, added: “He made a fulsome contribution through his lifetime in the sports arena, and he also served on the Gurdwara management committee in Wolverhampton as well.

“He came from Punjab to the UK in the 1960s, later on he went to the USA and came back to the UK, so he has travelled around for quite a long time.”