Soccer a big hit in rural Orissa

One may have heard abour hockey being played in tribal areas of Orissa. But the state's non-descript river-locked villages of Kendrapara district has witnessed a silent soccer revolution has been taking place. These handful of villages have been throwing up women footballers of class regularly over the last four years, five of whom have already donned the India colours in international tournaments.

In fact, the Aul-Rajkanika belt is now being considered as the nursery of women football in Orissa from where talents are being picked for training in state-run sports hostels.

Sixteen-year-old Sushmita Mallick recently accompanied three other young girls of the area to Kuala Lumpur to represent the country in an age-group tournament, virtually pushing aside the prevalent caste and gender bias.

Sushmita, along with Sangita Patra, Suprava Samal, Bijoylaxmi Sahu and Alochana Senapati have broken new grounds, said Debendra Sharma, president of the Kendrapara district committee, who is considered the chief patron of women's football in the region.

Sharma, for whom football is a passion, is also vice-president of the state Women's Football Association. It all started happening after a series of exhibition women's football matches were organised at the mini stadium at Aul in 2002. A novel concept to the local people, it evoked much enthusiasm and curiosity among young girls.
"After the completion of matches, we invited the girls to come forward to participate in a training camp. The response was unprecedented as over 40 girls, accompanied by their parents turned up for the training session. They have not looked back thereafter," Sharma said.

While five of the girls belonging to Malapatana, Giribandha and Goudapatana villages have already become internationals, 13 girls from the area have been chosen for the state under-19 and under-16 teams, Sharma said.

Seeing the talent the girls had, the state department of sports deputed a coach to train them. Initially, the physical education teacher of a local college volunteered to coach the girls. "But later we recruited a trained coach, Chittaranjan Patra to nurture these talented girls."

Sharma said several hurdles were encountered in training the girls as they were mostly from dalit background and had little to look forward to their future.
Some of those who encouraged the girls to take off on an unknown career in sports even spent from their own pockets to keep the training programme running. But when the girls began to excel on the field, contributions came voluntarily from other sources. "Though the initial days were hard, the burden eased with majority of the footballers being accommodated in the government-run sports hostel at Bhubaneswar," he said.

(In Kendrapara, Orissa, 2006)