Ujszász, it was on the 23rd of March 2023 ...
We have a huge loss. We lost the president of Hungarian Shuttlecock Association, the vice-president of International Shuttlecock Federation: János Fehér. He met shuttlecock three decades ago and since then he did everything to make it a popular sport in Újszász, in Hungary, in Europe and even in the whole world. He organized countless shuttlecock shows, competitions, and other events in different parts of Hungary. I believe, the whole shuttlecock nation can be grateful and proud of his life and carrier.
His vision and aim were, beside making shuttlecock more and more well-known, to help poor children to access sport, give them opportunities to travel special venues in Hungary and even abroad. He was always helpful and solved each problem instead of searching excuses. He preferred to cooperate with small towns and schools and organize shuttlecock kicking in a well operating system in Hungary. He reached that nowadays we have about 450 registered shuttlecock players in Hungary, a good system of ranking competitions for each age groups and Hungarian Shuttlecock Association is acknowledged by governmental and national bodies.
He did sports in his whole life. During his school years he organized competitions for his schoolmates in badminton, table tennis, wrestling, chess, athletics. Later he was among the founders of Hungarian triathlon and duathlon. Some years later he got to know shuttlecock and spend his whole life to spread it. He was always keen on sports not only as a player but also a person who keep his company together and help them. Recently he still trained for running races, played shuttlecock, badminton and table tennis when he had some free time beside doing the daily operational work of Hungarian Shuttlecock Association and Újszászi VVSE. He reached that Újszász became a well-known town for shuttlecock players worldwide and organized international shuttlecock events.
He was among the founders of International Shuttlecock Federation. He travelled to Hanoi in 1999 to establish and lay the basics of international shuttlecock. His always kept world championships and European championships as a priority. In 2000 and 2007 World Championships were organized in Hungary. But he founded another important series of competitions, too. Hungarian Open is organized each year (except for the pandemic) for 26 years. In my view, it is a great social event for shuttlecock players. Janos Fehér had the energy, patience, ambition, motivation, excellent organizing skills and knowledge of different cultures to keep all these people together in one community. We have countless memories what belong to him. Just to mention some of them: travelling in an adventurous way to Hongkong, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Makao, Germany, French, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Malaysia and so on, get to know people from different cultures, make special friendships, have parties after international events, cooperate with our teammates in and outside the field. Most of us can say that his advice and effect determine our everyday life and we could learn so many things from him. He had always some useful suggestions for everybody and knew him more than anybody.
He worked for shuttlecock until the last second. He was carrying medals for a students’ competition to Szederkény when he got a heart attack. Szederkény is the small town next to Borjád what is a legendary shuttlecock village. János Fehér mentioned us the players of Borjád very often as an example. They played in really poor conditions in a small room (smaller than a shuttlecock court) with balls in bad condition, but they were enough ambitious and motivated to get to the world championship and win bronze medal there. We still feel that he can come in the sports hall any time and we can show and prove him that we do our best to continue Hungarian shuttlecock kicking at the same level and deal with international issues, too. We must show that we will not let to damage his work regarding shuttlecock. We still cannot believe that we lost János Fehér, or as we call him: János bácsi. He was our biggest role model, leader, coach and supporter.
Thank you Janos !
Hungarian Shuttlecock Association
Commemoration
Janos with us
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