He has speech difficulties, his legs move slowly, and his hands tremble.

Once a fleet-footed athlete, Yang needs a wheelchair to move around.

His son Eugene said Yang was trying to be himself as much as possible, even though everyday tasks have become more complicated.

On Saturday, Yang will make a rare public appearance at the Sports Flame reunion of over 100 sports legends in Kuala Lumpur.

His teammates from the 1960s and 70s know him for his courage, tireless industry, gentle humility, and as the striker who almost missed out on the Munich Olympics in 1972.

In Munich, he played the dual role of inside-right and tactician, thinking, calculating and offering solutions, defensively and offensively.

Dumbstruck, baffled

Before the 1972 Olympics, selectors dropped a bombshell by dumping Yang and another striker, Robin Goh, from the national hockey squad.

Both Yang and Goh were dumbstruck, while senior players were confused.

The poor team selection, according to full-back N Sri Shanmuganathan (Sri Shan) in mysportsflame.com, “amputated the right side of the attack”.

Senior players protested, and there was unease in the camp over the selection of lesser skilled players.

Three weeks before the departure of the 18-man team to Munich, some of the seniors made personal appeals to Raja Azlan Shah, the team manager, to reinstate Yang and Goh.

Raja Azlan, who was also selection committee chairman of the Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF), told them he could only take one extra player along.

He asked the players for their choice, and they were unanimous in wanting Yang, although many felt right winger Goh also deserved a place.

Yang made the team, replacing full-back Randhir Singh, who was carrying an injury.

More than a player

For a player who was dropped from the initial squad, Yang became an influential player in all the matches in Munich.

Left-half S Balasingam said Yang turned out to be more than a player.

“Raja Azlan made him the team strategist. All the team planning and meetings were handled by Yang and he did a great job of it,” Balasingam wrote for Sports Flame.

Yang, writing for the same website, recalled Raja Azlan asking him to brief the team on how they should play against West Germany.

He said most of the players did not know much about the German team and were unprepared for the encounter.

Yang told his team they should not waste energy running with the ball because the Germans were faster and proficient tacklers as evidenced in a practice match against Frankfurt 1880.

He identified Michael Peters, who launched attacks from midfield, as a threat and it was decided M Mahendran would mark the sweeper to cut off supply.

Yang said the Germans were visibly surprised at the tactic of marking the sweeper out the game, which Malaysia narrowly lost 1-0.

Malaysia finished eighth overall at the Olympics, but Yang felt “with a little bit of luck and perhaps better umpiring” they could have finished the pool matches in second place and qualified for the semi-finals.

Sri Shan and Balasingam however held Malaysia could have performed better with a worthier team.

Said Sri Shan: “The team was so lop-sided that although we registered 18 players, we only used 13 to 14 players for the duration of the tournament.

“If we had able substitutes, our performance could have moved to another level.

“The national team should be selected on merit alone, and nothing else. Selectors should be colour blind in picking the best available material, and put aside their own personal agendas.”

Balasingam said it was a wonder Malaysia finished in eighth spot, the country’s best ever placing at the Olympics.

“If we had made a better selection, I dare say we could have been in the top four in Munich,” said Balasingam, who died in 2020.

Young Yang

Yang was born in Kuala Kangsar but was brought up in Melaka, where his parents were schoolteachers.

He would later become a teacher himself after graduating from Universiti Malaya with a Bachelor’s in science.

Yang earned his first national call-up as a Form Four student, turning out for Malaysia B against Singapore.

At 20, he was in the side that finished fourth at the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games.

It was in Bangkok that he met his future wife Thong Nyok Seen, the daughter of former Olympic Council of Malaysia general secretary, the late Thong Poh Nyen.

Yang also featured at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, and had it not been for his Form Five exams in 1964, he could have made it three Olympiads by being in Tokyo that year.

He turned to coaching after he quit playing hockey, and his programmes yielded top coaches like Stephen Van Huizen, Wallace Tan, Colin Sta Maria, Zulkifli Abbas, Kevin Nunis, Lim Chiow Chuan, Yahya Atan and V Sasidharan.

Everyone in the hockey community regards Yang as a modest and soft-spoken gentleman, who shunned glamour and launched his prowess from the background.