KARACHI, Sept 10: The Super Hockey League has failed to attract fans on Saturday as no more than a few hundreds, most of them officials were present on the first two days.

Although the league has entered into third day the attendance remained low as merely lights under which the matches are being played could not pull the public.

To add colour, PHF has invited six Indian players who are representing the six participating teams, while there are lucky draws, couple of stalls outside the stadium apart from police band in attendance. However all these “attractions” could not bring Karachiites to the stadium to watch the national sport.

Interestingly, new PHF chief Tariq Kirmani during his first visit to Hockey Club of Pakistan had said categorically said “people will see these stands will be full of crowd soon.”

The team officials of the participating sides too pointed out towards the poor attendance.

“I am certainly not satisfied with the kind of crowd I saw here today,” Capital Dynamos coach Tauqir Dar told a post-match press briefing, blaming “cricket-mania” for it.

However, he was unconvincing when asked why club level soccer fixtures in slum areas like Lyari attract thousands of fans despite cricket-mania and almost no publicity.

“It must be because there is no TV coverage which pulls the crowd to football ground,” he said but could not answer when told the league was also being covered by only one television channel.

Northern Cavaliers manager Farooq Ashraf was also not happy with the small crowd.

“Absence of people from the stands is certainly something which is not encouraging,” he said.