In Jhansi they had a fueral, not in the ghat, but on the ground he played on. Players came, but it seemed a little too late. It made him hard to forget the first few words of his autobiography `Goal': "You are doubtless aware that I am a common man." He wasn't but he died like one.
After his retirement, Dhyan Chand earned a diploma in coaching from the National Institute of Sports in Patiala, in Punjab. However he found it difficult to coach something that was innate to him.
Residents of Vienna, Austria honoured him by setting up a statue of him with four hands and four sticks, depicting his control and mastery over the ball. One of his statues is near the India Gate, New Delhi while another has been erected in 2005 at Medak in Andhra Pradesh.
In 1956, at the age of 43, he retired from the army with the rank of Major. The Government of India honoured him that year by conferring him the Padma Bhushan (India's third highest civilian honour).
Dhyan Chand however died penniless and uncared for in a hospital, receiving a meagre pension. Dhyan Chand was very sad to see India finish seventh at the Montreal Olympics, 1976.
It makes it sadder still that even this man as he turned grey should tell his sons not to play hockey, for it gave him so little in return. He coached for a while, then settled in his beloved Jhansi, still the fisherman, the hunter of deer, who loved to cook -but short of money. "Once he went to a tournament in Ahmedabad and they turned him away not knowing who he was," says Ashok kumar(his son). "And he never saw any comfort."
When he fell ill, liver cancer it turned out, and came to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences, they dumped him in the general ward. A journalist's article eventually got him moved to a special room, but that public memory had to be jogged tells its own story. When he was on his deathbed at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, he reportedly told a doctor that Indian hockey was dying. He then went into a coma and died in 1979.
A year after his death, the Indian Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in his honour. In addition, Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi is named in his honor.29 August, his birthday is celebrated as the National Sports Day in India. The President gives away sport-related awards such as the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award and Dronacharya Award on this day at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.