Kuppan was captain of the Penang state team in the 1960s and later became a striker for the national football team, and is best remembered as one of Malaysia’s most successful football coaches.
Kuppan leaves behind his wife Amirthemani Govindasamy Pillai, 84, three sons and four grandchildren. Kuppan was the eldest among eight siblings.
According to his youngest brother Kihsaven, 66, Kuppan breathed his last at 5.10pm at his son’s home at Bandar Sri Damansara, Petaling Jaya.
Kihsaven said Kuppan had been intermittently ill of late, unable to walk, and suffered multiple complications.
He said Kuppan was recently warded for five days at the Selayang Hospital after he had become weakened. Kihsaven said Kuppan also suffered from a mild stroke a few days ago and could not get up.
“I used to follow him for all his matches with my Honda Cub bike. With Kuppan, I met Mokhtar Dahari and other Malaysian football greats. I love him a lot and I am going to miss him,” he told FMT.
Butterworth-born Kuppan was a clerk with the Penang Port Commission in 1958 and was later drafted into the Penang state team that year. He worked with the port commission for some 31 years.
The Penang team won the HMS Malaya Cup in 1958 and he was in the national team which won the Merdeka tournament that year.
He represented the country for eight years up to 1965 and played 10 seasons for Penang, retiring in 1967 due to an injury.
Kuppan then coached the national team from 1972 to 1978, during which time the national team won the Merdeka tournament once and the Thai King’s Cup twice.
In two years of coaching the Penang football team from 1972 to 1974, he led them to win their fourth Malaysia Cup title.
Penang football association’s former vice-president Gary Nair remembers Kuppan as a sports coach at Northern Telecom (NT), in charge of training the factory’s 3,000-odd workers in sports of all kinds.
Nair said he got to know him well during his NT days and was “the best human being ever”.
“He was the kind of person who would write you a thank you note and place it in an envelope on your table. He does that when one completes their sports assignments. How can you find such a person today? He was a player, a coach and a friend. And a brother figure to all. We have lost a gem.”