Thursday, November 26, 2009

With all the interest generated by EPL, why Indian football couldn’t spread beyond?



In pre-independence India, while hockey players have invariably been Anglo-Indians, Muslims, Sikhs and tribals, Indian football was enthusiastically embraced only by the elite sections of society. The immortal IFA Shield winning Mohun Bagan team of 1911 had Hiralal Mukherjee, Bhuti Sukul, Sudhir Chatterjee, Manmohan Mukherjee, Rajen Sengupta, Nilmadhav Bhattacharya, Kanu Roy, Habul Sarkar, Abhilash Ghosh, Bijoydas Bhaduri, Shibdas Bhaduri who belonged to the bhadralok (gentleman) community in the pre-independence India.

The failure of hockey is a sign of the inability of the nation to accommodate its minorities. But it remains a mystery as to why football has also failed at the national level. As in the case of hockey, the game flourished in the immediate aftermath of independence, with tournaments like IFA Shield, Rovers Cup and Durand Cup attracted large crowds and featured clubs from all over the country. Many of these teams -- Andhra Pradesh Police, Punjab Police, BSF to the recent Kerala Police -- were great teams that fielded players of the highest calibre.

However, the fact that most of these teams were government-sponsored and not locally supported clubs suggests that the game was not organic to the areas these clubs were based in. When state patronage began to wane, these teams disintegrated rapidly. Another reason to this theory could be the localization of football in just two states -- Bengal and Goa.

With all the interest generated by EPL and Champions League, why football couldn’t spread beyond this limited geography, remains a big mystery. The very manner by which football became a popular sport in these states proved to be an impediment for further growth. Interestingly, in the case of Bengal, football became a tool which was used to construct a modern Bengali identity in the wake of the large influx of immigrants from East Pakistan now (Bangladesh) after Partition in 1947.

Bengalis devoted their time and energy more in a East Bengal and Mohun Bagan rivalry than just dedicating towards a greater programme to find out talents and popularise the game beyond Bengal. All this meant that football was totally internal to the cultural system and couldn’t capture a significant portion of the market in the new economy. Globalization has caused its appeal to diminish even in Calcutta.

In Goa too, football was used to construct ethnic identity. Once again, the game remained restricted to a small region. Why football has failed to spread wholeheartedly in India? How is it that a sport that elicits so much passion in one Indian state fails to do so in another? To be honest, there is little literature on Indian football and also how different ethnic groups impact on each other. In fact, the mystery surrounding the collapse of football could be better elucidated if we possessed a theoretical framework for analysing such phenomena.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Bob, we also had Rahim



I had read about Syed Abdul Rahim when I was 10. From that precocious age till now, his name continue to stirr a lot of interest among the aficionados. With his small frame, Rahim was and is by far the most successful Indian coach.

We talk about Bob Houghton's angrezi style. Rahim was simply desi. Yet he was hugely successful and churned out more glories for Indian football than any other coaches. During my conversations with his son SS Hakim and his famous students Peter Thangaraj (who passed away last year), Chuni Goswami, PK Banerjee, Balaram, Yusuf Khan, Syed Nayeemuddin and others, one thing was clear to me. Unlike Bob, he was modest and down to earth and an Indian who wanted to give his best shot.

Not many would know, Rahim used to write couplets framed around football techniques. He was a qualified physical trainer and a referee. Hence, Indian team didn't require a physio during his era. His teachings were simple and to the point. No wonder he had produced a genre of footballers who became living legends.

A creditable performance by the Indian team at the London Olympics in 1948 and at the first Asian Games raised hopes among football fans that this country was on the path to fame and glory in this sport. But their hopes were dashed at the Helsinki Olympics after a 10-1 drubbing at the hands of Yugoslavia. That was when Rahim decided to beat the European teams at their own game.

He carefully studied the methods of the Europeans and modified these to suit Indian conditions and Indian players. Besides, Rahim knew exactly where the weak points lay in the national side and managed to mitigate these and build a formidable team. He put his boys to the test on a tour of USSR in 1955 and then again during a home series in 1956 before the team took part in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne and came fourth. Till now that has been India's best show in the Olympics. Neville D'Souza was the top scorer in the tournament.

Rahim had an excellent understanding of the requirements of the game and the material he had in his hands by way of players and their skills. Moreover he also had the advantage of having some exceptionally skilled players in the side in those days. Many of them were from Hyderabad and he was therefore familiar with their abilities.

He was able to establish a good rapport with his players and they knew exactly what he wanted of them. The players in turn had tremendous respect for Rahim and did their job with great zeal. The Hyderabad Police team in those days was one of the best in the country and had an enviable record in domestic tournaments. With talent available in plenty in centres such as Hyderabad, Bengal, Bombay (sorry Raj Thackeray, I like to use the original) and Madras, Indian football seemed to be on firm ground and India seemed to be proceeding along the right lines. But then came the slide, which left many fans disheartened.

For the next 10 years, till Rahim died on June 11, 1963, India were one of the strongest teams in Asia. Single handedly, he raised a highly talented side that included legends like Chuni, PK, Tulsidas Balaram, Yousuf Khan, Jarnail Singh, Arun Ghosh, Thangaraj, Ram Bahadur, Kempiah, SK Azizuddin, Zaufiqar, Prasanta Sinha, Franco and many others.

The country has now slipped down the ladder and even at the Asian level, the national squad is considered a mediocre team. Indian football followers now feel saddened by this downward trend in the standard of football in the country. Perhaps what India now needs is another coach of the calibre of Rahim.

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