When I was writing my weekly column on the Observer-SLT School Cricketers, there came the shocking news - the death of a sports news legend. It was saddening to learn of the death of former Deputy Editor and long-standing Sports Editor of the Sunday Observer A. C. De Silva, a well-known Thomian and former water polo referee. He was the Sports Editor of the Sunday Observer even at the time I began my journalistic career exactly 35 years on April 16, 1987. He passed away on Thursday at the age of 80. He played a leading role in the Observer Schoolboy Cricketer since its inception in1979.