It’s difficult to forget the years in Calcutta: Amalraj

Amalraj introduces Mohammad Akbar, Surajit Sengupta
and Moidul Islam to legendary actor Dilip Kumar during a
Rovers Cup match in Bombay in 1980. Credit: Amalraj

My late dad was my encyclopedia on Calcutta football.

“Look at this player. Jersey No.14. He’s Amalraj. John’s brother,” he used to tell me whenever Victor Amalraj popped up on the TV screen during the Doordarshan years when the channel beamed the Derby live across the drawing rooms of several families in Bengal.

But I always wondered why Amalraj had that brooding and a serious expression as a player. In fact, I’ve not seen his smiling faces in any of the photographs from the 70s and 80s magazines.

Yet, he was an effective midfielder who possessed excellent passing and shooting skills. He also had the knack of being at the right spot at the right time, a quality liked by his coaches and team-mates at Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Mohammedan Sporting and Indian national team.

I met him for the first time during my visit to Hyderabad at the Food Corporation of India (FCI) office at HACA Bhawan in Nampally last year.

The mention of Calcutta evoked memories of his wonderful years spent with the top clubs. His face lit up like a 1000-watt neon lamp.

“I miss Calcutta. I’ve played 14 years there. You’ve made me nostalgic. The city is close to my heart. It was my home. I can’t forget the years I’ve spent there,” said Amalraj, who made his debut in Calcutta with Sporting in 1978.

“It’s one of the fabulous cities which respect footballers. Even the washer men and rickshaw-pullers recognised and praised us, but I think the scene has changed in the last two decades. Football has lost a large part of its identity to cricket,” he said.  

Just like his elder brother John, who passed away in 2015, he earned fame and popularity in a city where top footballers gave Bengal film icons a run for their money in the seventies and eighties. Such was their charm and star appeal that most of the magazines during that era had cover stories on them.

John, who led Sporting to Calcutta League title in 1967, was a huge influence on him.

“He pushed me to go to Calcutta after Andhra Pradesh beat Bengal in the B C Roy Trophy final in 1976. I scored the only goal in the match. Railways offered me a job, but my brother advised me to go to Calcutta,” said Amalraj, a Deputy General Manager at FCI.

“I want to take a stroll at the Park Street and have snacks at the Flurys followed by a spicy dinner at the Amber. I would love to spend a day in Calcutta,” added the former feisty midfielder, who went to Calcutta in the late 70s.

As a schoolboy, he started at the Secunderabad-based Bolarum Sporting in the Senior Division Rahim League in 1974-75. 

Credit: Amalraj

Bolarum has produced some of India’s greatest footballers including Anthony Patrick, KP Dhanraj, Dharmalingam Kannan, Peter Thangaraj, Tulasidas Balaram all whom played in Calcutta.

Asked why football is dead in his own city, he said, “We need a sports culture in the schools, which lack infrastructure. The kids have a difficult choice to make between academics and sports. With such constraints, it’s difficult to produce good players. We can expect talent from small towns and villages, but not from cities. I'm hopeful that the U-17 World Cup in India will help develop the sport."