Tulsidas Balaram

Played for East Bengal, which is the rival club.

But was a genuine great of  Indian Football.

And surprisingly, he did not have a page on him, on Wikipedia.

Well, now he does (click here).

I am a plastic fan. This is my defense. Our defense.

I am what you call a plastic fan. Of Arsenal. And Barcelona. I am from Bangalore, India, and here’s my defense. And that of the millions that you ridicule every day.
I love the game. Having been initiated into football via the magical skills of Diego Madarona in ‘86, I cannot think of life without the game. I have played the game at a reasonable level, and still try to manage a game every weekend. Not very different from you, am I?
I have an Indian club I love, Mohun Bagan AC. I don’t stay in my city of origin, Kolkata (Mohun Bagan is from that city), anymore, so I don’t get to go to the stadium too many times anymore (Bangalore to Kolkata is 2000 miles, yes, that was 2000 miles), I used to be a regular. I wept after a defeat, especially to our eternal rivals, East Bengal FC. I was jubilant after wins. I still am, watching the matches on TV. I am what you call a normal football fan, I love my club.
Just like you love Huddersfield. Just like you love Bradford, just like you love Derby.
But I also love the game itself. And I am honest enough to accept that Mohun Bagan, or East Bengal, or Dempo, or Mahindra Utd. , don’t really provide that kind of football. That does not make me love my club any less, that just makes me want to get a chance to watch and enjoy better football too.
And therefore came the Premiership. And therefore came the Primera Liga. I love how well they play the game I love in your country. And in Spain. There is the television, and I don’t miss a match.
I am watching the league from 1998 (that is about the time when the Premier League started being aired regularly in Indian TV, thank you Star Sports / ESPN), I was 18 then. Tony Adams is my hero, and Dennis Bergkamp is only second to Diego Maradona in the God-stakes, in my book. I HATE Luis Figo, he’s the real Judas. I am jubilant when Arsenal wins, I am dejected when Arsenal loses. I follow every match, I follow the post-season, and just like you, I wanted us to have a holding midfielder too. And no, I didn’t want Alonso, I wanted Toulalan. Ah, wishes… I am a fan.
And yes, I have been to your stadia (not to the Emirates or Highbury, sadly. Never stayed in England long enough to manage that yet), and I know that the tears that you cry when your club loses will never be the same as my sadness at an Arsenal defeat. But I know the tears, I have cried them after a Bagan loss.
But does it mean that our sadness at an Arsenal defeat counts for nothing? We came to the premiership looking for great football, we found a club we would like to follow, and we followed the club. And devoted we have been, for the last ten years. And yes we don’t have perspective; they started showing the Premier League on TV only ten years ago. I thought we did the best we could as fans. Where did we go wrong?
I thought it was the universal game.
- Godof86 (don’t ever say ‘third world’ again without knowing what the word originates from), Arsenal, Barcelona and Mohun Bagan.

Diego Biseswar

Plays for Feyenoord in the Eredivisie. (click here)

Is 20, is good, played and provided an assist last weekend, is of Indian origin. (click here)

Next came two splendid goals and a lovely assist to Michael Mols by Diego Biseswar, who had come on as a substitute for the injured Andwélé Slory, which took the pressure off the still depleted Rotterdam side by securing a 5-0 victory. Biseswar, 20, and Georginio Wijnaldum, 17, gave fans a glimpse of a potentially very bright future for Feyenoord. In the shorter term the Rotterdammers should have a fearsome side once their final eight injured and suspended players rejoin the squad.

And there are few chances that he will ever make the Dutch first XI.

So why can’t we offer him regular national team football, and ask him to play for India?

The first step?

India plays Tajikistan in the finals of the AFC Challenge Cup, today in Delhi. (click here for article)

A win on Wednesday will arouse hopes of beginning of a turnaround and awakening of a “sleeping giant” after years of slumber and will go into record books of Indian football which does not have much to write about in terms of recent achievement.

Did we hear someone say that the wheels started turning when we appointed Bob Houghton as the manager of the national team?

There was Ciric Milovan in the early eighties, and Rustom Akramov in the early-mid nineties. And these were quality coaches too, like Houghton. It didn’t work then, remember.

What about now? It probably has got something to do with the increased ambition level of the players, the belated fruits of the professsionalism of the Indian Football League, and indeed, a good manager in Houghton.

Or maybe it is just another false dawn…

Anyway, the match starts at 1900hrs IST. You can follow it live on Indianfootball.com (click here)

(Edit: India won 4-1. Sunil Chhetri scored a hat-trick. Do check the ‘On the net’ page)

India – football and the class barriers

Dileep Premachandran writes in the Times, on Indian football heroes (click here for article)…

The talent is there at junior level, too, and although Baichung Bhutia, the finest Indian player of his generation, rarely got off the bench during a three-year stay at Bury from 1999, few would be surprised if Manchester United unearthed the next Mohammad Salim, the dazzling winger who caused a stir at Celtic in the 1930s, or another Chuni Goswami, the Mohun Bagan star coveted by Tottenham Hotspur in the 1960s.

Indeed, good to read such stuff. But the question that follows is, why hasn’t there been more of such Salims and Chunis?

The real problem, in my opinion, is that football (which has never been a game for the classes, but a popular, populist game for the masses in the rest of the world) has two distinctly different levels of following in India. Neither of who speak to each other. Or if they do, it’s generally only through whispers.

The first are the people who watch and love the game in a way others in Barcelona and Manchester and Liverpool and Rio and Buenos Aires and Accra and Hamburg love it, as player/supporter/fans. These are the people who have a genuine club following and watch games played in India by Indian teams, by going to the stadium or on TV, whenever it is available. Mostly comprising of the lower-income masses (as different from the moneyed classes, a very tacky way of putting it I agree, and will edit this whenever I find a better description), these are the people who fill up the Cooperage, the Salt Lake stadium for the Bengal derby, and even the Kanteerava at times. It is from them that the majority of the football-players of the country come in.

The second are the classes. They support the ManUniteds, the Arsenals, the Barcelonas, the Juventuses and the Real Madrids. At ease with the world, the common passion of the world is theirs too. They look down upon Indian football as poor (which it is in comparison, in all honesty), and don’t have any cultural or emotional attachment to Indian football whatsoever. They would never have gone to a stadium to watch a football match (or rather, better put, never an Indian football match), and a large majority has probably kicked a football only a meagre few times in their lives. They do genuinely love the game though.

The advent of the cable channels (and therefore European football) have certainly made the classes attracted to football, but it has also alienated them even more than before from Indian football. They would rather spend big money going to a pub to watch a North London derby than spending a fraction of that on the National Football League match that was being held in the stadium a mere mile from the pub. It’s only in Goa and Bengal and Kerala that the classes are somewhat interested in the local game.

And really, I would not blame them. Why would they waste their money on a distinctly below-par match on the ground if they do not have an affiliation to a club? It is not about the money, it is about the game, it’s about the entertainment, the emotions. As we say in marketing-speak, it’s about the bang for the buck.

But the net result is that the classes that watch the game on TV and at the pub, do not contribute at all to the development of football in the country.

So then, what does contribute? Well, the class barriers in India are as prevalent as before, but with the advent of globalization and multi-channelled television, European football is now easily accessible to the masses too. Many, many lower-income houses have cable (thus ESPN) anyway these days**.

And therefore, the next generations of Indian footballers will have seen the exploits of Gerrard and Ronaldinho and Eto’o on TV, and thus being another Sisir Ghosh or IM Vijayan or Bruno Coutinho might not be good enough for them, their dreams might be coloured differently from the green-and-maroon of Mohun Bagan, their dreams might just be the colour of the blaugrana of Barcelona.

And really, we just need one name. A George Weah is a once-in-a-lifetime player, and it would be wrong to expect a Weah to be born in some corner of India soon. But possibly even a Benayoun, why, even a Kenwyne Jones would do very well too. India is too big not to follow the lead. Remember, initially there was nobody… and then there was Jeev (tied 9th at the PGA championship! Good job!). And soon after there was Atwal, and Randhawa, and Shiv, and SSP, and Rahil…. We just need one star, an average premiership star will do just fine. We just need one name.

The future might just be bright.

[Note:

** And please don't give me statistics of how many poor Indian homes don't have TV or cable. It's the comparatively lower-income, and not the poor from whom the footballing masses of India come.

And on the same topic, am reading this book called Goalless, by Boria Majumdar and Kausik Bandyopadhyay, which chronicles football in India, right from the days of Nagendra Prasad Sarbadhikary to the 1911 glory of Shibdas Bhaduri's Mohun Bagan; to the brief encounters at the world stage by those teams of Sailen Manna, T Ao, Chuni Goswami, Peter Thangaraj, Jarnail Singh and PK Bannerjee; to the, indeed, 'Goalless' current stage. Will write a review when I am done reading it.]

On being an Indian fan of Arsenal and Barcelona….

I am a fan of Arsenal. And I am a fan of Barcelona. and having been initiated into football via the magical skills of Diego Madarona in ‘86 (weren’t you asking who/what is the godof86?)… I share the Eduardo Galleano – certified love for Joga Bonito. Having played the game at some level, I understand and appreciate a great defensive performance by say, Alessandro Nesta, and that is beautiful football for me too…. I love expressive, free-flowing football, and during the time I started watching the European game in all seriousness, the most beautiful, attacking and free-flowing football, in my opinion was played by Arsenal and Barcelona.

So I was, and remain a fan of Arsenal. And a fan of Barcelona.

And I have been in London for about a day in total, mostly in transit. And I have never been to Barcelona, though I would love to be in both of the places. Camp Nou would be fabulous, I know. And so would be the Emirates. I will like to visit the shopping mall which is in place instead of Highbury, and feel sad for I could never have been there to the stadium.

And then someone at Football365 screams abuse at fans like us, from distant India and Singapore and Hong Kong, for showering our support to clubs with whom we do not share locational or cultural synergies. And they call our ilk fair-weather fans and glory-hunters.

My real team will always be Mohun Bagan Athletic Club, in West Bengal, India. And yes, if you ask me, I go to the stadium to watch Mohun Bagan whenever I can, whenever the travails of holding down a job allows me to. A victory in the Indian National Football League can gladden the heart like nothing else. Like all other Mohun Bagan fans, the pain of defeat, especially to those bangladeshi refugees of East Bengal Sporting Club, can be at times just way too hard to bear. 

Yet, do understand that the football I get to see, supporting Mohun Bagan, is not really top drawer. But I really like the game! And European football is available on TV all the time (not the Championship, though)… so I naturally watch all the games I can, and due my preference for skillful, free-flowing football, I support Arsenal and Barcelona. And thus I have been supporting both the clubs for the last ten or so years.

And yes, if you ask me, a loss to Spurs (thankfully, that’s extremely rare) does not affect me so much that I feel for a while that this life is not worth living. Neither a loss to Real. They do affect me to quite an extent though. I do feel gutted after a defeat…. but yes, the pain you, North London / Catalunya dweller are dealing with might be more than that I face. And do realise, I know the feeling. I feel the same when Mohun Bagan loses to East Bengal. Or even to Mohammedan Sporting, rare as it might be though. Is that reason enough to spew venom at us? Really, when we started supporting Arsenal / Barca, we had no clue that we have to justify our support some day.

Look, I would love for Mohun Bagan to play football of such a level that there are fans of us in the farthest reaches of the world, but that is not to be. And you, dear north London / Catalunya dweller, would feel the same have you been in my position. And more fans would mean more money, and more money would mean better players in our team, and thereby more trophies. wouldn’t you like your team to win? As of now, as a Mohun Bagan man, I have to live with the limited glory of coming in the top 4 of the Indian National League after long last, and as a Gooner / Cule, I would like them to win the Premiership / La Liga, and meet in the finals of the Champion’s League. Well it’s happened once, and not too long ago…. I watched the match with friends, and I wore a Barca kit in the first half, and an Arsenal kit in the second.

Baichung, Seedorf and Rino

Can you believe it!

From Goal.com (click here for the full article)

The 31 year old chased the ball under pressure from defender and his resultant shot was inches wide. Bhaichung was also involved in the move for Schumacher’s goal. A little later, Seedorf laid the ball for the Indian star to place it in the net. This was Bhaichung’s second of the night; something the Indian fans wouldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams.

I would not have imagined in my wildest dreams!

Awesome, Baichung! Whatever little charity match this is, this article made my day,

To the club management of Mohun Bagan

This guy

is the best we have in the country (and yes I know he is not from the country, but you get the picture don’t you?).

Can I please ask you to keep faith in Karim Bencherifa for a while?

Ghotis, Bangals and why you should support Mohun Bagan if you are Indian (or even Bangladeshi)

In Bengal, the three dominant clubs are Mohun Bagan (which belongs to the TRUE inhabitants of the Bengali land. My real club); East Bengal (East Bengal = what we call Bangladesh these days); and Mohammedan Sporting (which is the club the sizable Muslim / Mohammedan population in Bengal support.

I really have nothing against Md. Sp as long as they don’t have a match against my club, and I will support them if the match is against the refugees.

One of the major landmarks of the freedom struggle was in 1911, when the greatest Indian (infact the greatest south Asian, infact the greatest Asian) club ever, Mohun Bagan defeated the East Yorkshire Regiment in the IFA Shield final. This win gave the country confidence, made us believe that if 11 barefoot Mohun Bagan players can defeat the Brits in their game, we can win back our country. And we did.

And as you can understand, if you are Bengali, you are born into supporting one of the three clubs. If you are an Indian Bengali, you support Mohun Bagan. If you are a ex-Bangladeshi refugee, you support EB. If you are Muslim, you tend to support Mohammedan sporting. Mohun Bagan or East Bengal supporters among the Bengali Muslim are rare, of course more common these days than earlier, Mohammedan Sporting is not as strong as it used to be…

In fact, it might be a little impolite to ask someone if he/she is a real Bong or basically from Bangladesh. So the normal way is to just ask ‘Are you Mohun Bagan or East Bengal’…..

Now look, I am also fine with Bangladesh. You support your Abahoni Kreerachakra and your Dhaka Mohammedan, I don’t care. Just don’t land up here in our country and still do your East Bengal supporting shit.

And yes, since you asked, the bias is showing. Good that you noticed.