Like Beckham, with sticks(Chak De India)

Like Beckham, with sticks

TURNS out Eddie McGuire is not the only one cultivating links with movie stars. While Collingwood has invited two-time Oscar winner Robert de Niro to the footy this weekend, Melbourne's hockey community is in the grip of Bollywood fever. Victorian Vipers player Sarah O'Connor was among those packed into the premiere of Chak De India (Go For It India) in Richmond last Friday night, after portraying an Australian player in scenes shot at the State Netball Hockey Centre late last year.

The film features Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan as coach of the Indian women's team seven years after he is ousted from the game in disgrace as a player. "One man mentoring a hockey team of young and feisty girls," spruiks the preview. "For the girls, it is a chance to make their nation proud. For their coach, it is a chance to reclaim his lost honour."

There was no mistaking the heart-throb factor. A changeroom at Royal Park was converted to a plush dressing room with fridges and couches, said Hockey Victoria chief executive Adam Wallish, who helped find extras for the film from clubs around the state. And thousands were recruited from Melbourne's Indian community for the crowd scenes. "I'd kill for crowds like that at our state league games," Wallish said.

O'Connor, 22, was coming to terms with her new-found stardom when "Sporting Life" called yesterday. "I didn't know much about Bollywood, except they do a lot of dancing and singing. Now that I've seen it, I'm like, this is pretty big," said O'Connor, who has a speaking role in which she clashes with one of the Indian players at a cocktail party. "I play a bit of a *****," she said. "I didn't know who he (Khan) was, but I'd heard he was the Brad Pitt of Bollywood, and then I met him and you could just tell. He had the look and the smell. As soon as he came out, it was like a rock concert. People were going mental, they baked cakes, brought flowers, some girls fainted. When I shook his hand, I thought maybe I shouldn't wash it."

Chak De India is like Bend It Like Beckham, with sticks. But it keeps Bollywood silliness to a minimum. "There's an underdog team and they come together and win. It's predictable, but it's good. It has a great storyline," O'Connor said. "It was funny, when I did the movie we had the big crowds, so you kind of feel what it would be like to play for Australia. Then a month after we finished filming, I got a call-up to go to Argentina with the Australian team for the Champions Trophy. I got all these emails from the Indian girls saying, 'This is the real thing'!"

https://www.theage.com.au/news/sport/all-agog-with-warney/200 7/08/16/1186857681858.html?page=2