Miracle on Snow: I-League’s newest club from Kashmir are as real as they come
They will make their I-League bow next season after emerging champions in the second division.
It’s difficult to imagine an Indian Super League club or even an I-League club for that matter, haggling with the local fruit seller for bananas.
For Real Kashmir, with one of the smallest budgets in Indian football, first division, second or otherwise, it wasn’t a frugal measure but one borne out of sheer necessity. Crowd funding brought in the minimum funding required to set up a first-team and a couple of age group teams, but not much else.
Four years after inception, Real Kashmir just confirmed their place in the topmost tier of Indian football. There’s no fear of obscurity anymore while approaching sponsors, for they became the first team from the valley to qualify for the I-League.
The gulf in experience was a mismatch; it was the plucky valley team playing in the division for only the second year versus the perennial second division heavyweights from New Delhi, Hindustan FC. The latter will now play the second division for a record 15th season in a row, after getting pipped 3-2 in their final game.
As the rain poured down in the FSV Arena in Bengaluru, RKFC’s Scottish coach David Robertson, of Rangers and Leeds United fame, was lost for words. “Honestly, it’s a fairytale. Two years ago, there was no [first] team. Now we’re thinking about the likes of East Bengal coming over to Kashmir to play us.”
Ifham Tariq Mir and Danish Farooq, two Kashmiri lads, were on the scoresheet for their club on Thursday. This is the sort of platform that Shameem Meraj, the founder of the club and the owner of local newspaper Kashmir Monitor, sought to give the players from the state while starting Real Kashmir.
“Two years ago you would not see, in January and in snow, that you have football,” says Meraj. Cobbling together donations from local patrons and businesses, Meraj started the club in 2015, only to be pegged back by a lack of quality training facilities and curfews.
While financial constraints eased, training and match practice logistics remained a challenge. Bakshi Stadium, their home ground located next to the JK Sports Council, was closed due to the snow pouring in. The budget continued to be modest though, as nine Indians from outside the state and two foreigners were signed for a cumulative salary of three lakhs per month.
The Sports Council’s Turf would sometimes be used but lack of floodlights and snow clearance would be a challenge to the team’s training time. Robertson had to keep changing the training time from 7 am to 3 pm due to the harsh weather and curfew.
Salman Mir, the team’s manager in their first season in the second division and now with ISL side Pune City, remembers the team’s inception, “We had the smallest budget in the entire division but it was fantastic to watch a local derby (LoneStar Kashmir vs Real Kashmir). People would pack the TRC Ground in Srinagar to watch these two teams play.”
Hardly a surprise considering the immense popularity of the game in the state. The J&K League is one of the oldest in the country, running for 40 years, albeit with gaps in years where hostile conditions forced the local FA to postpone the league.
Mir says that there’s hardly a district in Kashmir which does not have kids turning out in droves for football tryouts. “Football is not only popular in Srinagar but also in Bandipora, Baramulla, Ganderbal Sopore, Budgam. We have a brand new academy and Pro license coaches like Hilal Rasool Parray coming through.”
Despite the team losing some of it’s stars, Loken Meitei, Sushil Meitei and others to ISL and I-League clubs, Real Kashmir came back stronger from the disappointment of losing out on the second division final stage by a single point last year.
The club arranged a tour to Scotland, an invaluable experience for the players and went about rebuilding the team with local players. This time, two-thirds of the squad belonged to the state and the other third contained the likes of ex-India U19 international Nadong Bhutia, who scored the vital third goal against Hindustan.
Credit must also go to the Kashmiris who have managed to make it to the big leagues. The likes of Mehrajuddin Wadoo and Ishfaq Ahmed created a path for the young guns to follow. Ishfaq, assistant manager at Jamshedpur FC says it’s important for the team to conduct shrewd transfer business ahead of the start of the I-League. “Its a fantastic achievement and we have always helped them out, supported them. I shall sit with them prior to the start of the season and talk about the new signings.”
This season, Real Kashmir went unbeaten in their group, as they romped to top spot in Group A in the preliminary stages with six wins and four draws. In the final round, the resilience showed by the team was immense.
They came back from a goal down twice, to hold Manipur’s TRAU and beat local favourites Ozone FC, to ensure that they only needed a point against Hindustan on the last match-day. Where they needed a point, they secured three as celebrations ensued.
The fairytale just got real for this club, as they come for the Mohun Bagans and the East Bengals. Football in the valley? You bet.
Real Kashmir Football Club: From anonymity to national success
Real Kashmir Football Club is the first team from the valley to qualify for I-League
In August 25, 2016, newspaper headlines from the valley screamed: “Unregistered football club gains entry into the third oldest football tournament in the word—128th Durand Cup”.
That was the year when the valley was paralysed due to unrest after the alleged encounter of militant Burhan Wani.
Cut to May 30, 2018, both the local and national papers announced the club's coming out party: “Kashmir gets football wings”.
On Wednesday, Real Kashmir Football Club became the first team from the valley to qualify for the I-League after topping the second division league. They will now play with the big boys of Indian football.
In a span of two years since their birth, the Real Kashmir Football Club—formed for a recreation purpose by two friends Sandeep Chattoo, a Kashmiri pandit and a local hotelier and Shamim Meraj, a Kashmiri Muslim—has gone on to become one of the brightest stories of sporting success from the valley in India.
This is the heartwarming story of a club whose seeds were actually sown in the aftermath of the devastating floods that submerged the valley in 2014. Meraj, who is also the editor of his family-owned local newspaper Kashmir Monitor, saw youngsters idling away their time in various nooks and crannies of Srinagar as most of the playgrounds were submerged. “I was out with my friends in the city for a stroll. We decided to do something that could engage them. I requested a couple of my friends to send footballs for them. That's when the idea of forming a small club struck me,” Meraj told THE WEEK.
And so, they formed the Real Kashmir Football Club in April 2016. Meraj received a letter from J&K Football Association that the club would represent the state in the Durand Cup at a time when almost all known clubs from the state were unwilling to participate in the tournament due to the ongoing unrest.
“Interestingly, RKFC had not played a single match in the local League,” Meraj admits. “I would not have accepted that letter had I known earlier what it entails! We had no idea what goes into playing at that level. We were not prepared financially or football wise,” said Meraj.
And so they went—a ragtag team which consisted of local players, with majority from the J&K bank. That was the year when RKFC got “ hammered”, in Meraj's own words. They played against the likes of Aizawl FC, Neroca FC, Dempo SC, Army and Air Force teams and predictably ended up last. They scored four goals in five matches and conceded 14.
The lesson on how to prepare for a season was quickly learnt. “Last year (2017) was a proper season for us; we planned in advance. We held our camp in January,” said Meraj. At home, the club trains at the Tourist Reception Centre ground which is an open field with no fencing.
The founder of the club is not over the moon by this sudden attention his club is garnering. “This is just the beginning. It was a big day no doubt, but that was yesterday. We look forward to playing tomorrow. Entering I-League, which is the biggest tournament, is huge but we have problems. We do not have a stadium to train; the stadium which exists does not even have toilets. We are a small club. There's a lot that needs to be done for us to compete with the big clubs. Squad needs to be finalised, see what we can afford. We don't have a budget. We have our feet on the ground,” he said.
The team boasts of two foreign coaches: David Robertson, chief coach and former Scotland international and Glasgow Ranger's player, and an assistant coach. There's an interesting backstory to Robertson coaching the RKFC. “I got his contact through an agent.” Robertson arrived as he had never visited India. It was snowing when he arrived and when he saw the facilities, he wanted to leave. “Robertson, however, stayed on for two years,” said Meraj, with a laugh. “Sometimes the coach, too, puts his own money into the club!”
The recent success, Meraj hopes, will shake up the state government which he claims has not helped the local team in any way. “In fact, they owe us money which they had promised. Hopefully, now they will give it so that we can clear our dues.”
It is important to note that football has always been a popular sport in the valley. It has a strong history, too. The most famous player to come out of the state was Abdul Majid who captained India in the 1980s in the Nehru Cup. He played for Mohun Bagan at a time when domestic football was dominated by the two Kolkata giants and arch-rivals, Bagan and East Bengal. More recent inspirations are Mehrajuddin Wadoo and Ishfaq Ahmed—both former India Internationals from Kashmir.
The emergence of small clubs on the national football scene is no longer a rarity. Take Minerva FC, Shillong Lajong FC and Aizawl FC, for instance. RKFC are the next chapter of this story.
Those who have watched the RKFC play in tournaments describe them as a competitive team. “The local players are very good. If efforts are put in by the owners and other institutions, they can be a very good team. In fact, it just proves that the gap between the big teams and small teams in terms of performance and talent is not so huge,” said football author and commentator Novy Kapadia, who thinks the Army could engage better with local youth by supporting the cause of football in the valley.
But the challenges small clubs face are huge—from getting better players, better facilities, retaining coaches and having a proper support staff, to be part of the “elite club” requires big bucks. “It's laughable,” said Meraj when asked about the club's annual budget. “What is the budget of Mohun Bagan?” He thought hard and said, “Our budget is probably two per cent of that.”
Financial limitations, however, have not affected the spirit of the club owners. With no assistance from the AIFF or the state government, Meraj depended a lot on “quiet support from his friends and friendly crowd funding”. He is an alumni of the St Stephens College in Delhi, and relies a lot on his network of friends all over India. “When we travel, my friends help me to sort out the team's stay in hotels and other logistics,” he revealed.
Meraj sounded off with a request to the J&K Football Association to open up the local super division league for outsiders. RKFC boasts of players from Sikkim and Punjab. Currently, only people from Jammu and Kashmir are allowed to play in the local league. “It's important for local players to have exposure by playing with players from other states.”
14 years a slave: The story of Hindustan FC’s ‘emotional’ stay in Indian football’s 2nd division
Hindustan have stayed for 14 years in the second division, in a turbulent environment where a lot of their contemporaries have shut down.
“Tan, Dhan, Mann sab Hindustan se hain. Agar woh mere bure din mein sahara diye hai, toh mera bhi farz banta hai ki main bhi unke acche ya bure din mein sahara doon. (My body, wealth, mind belongs to Hindustan. If they have helped me through my bad days, then it’s my responsibility to be there with them for the good or bad times.)”
Pushpender Kundu struggles to remember the exact nature of his beginnings with Hindustan. The 39-year-old central defender and captain of the Delhi-based-second division club has been associated with the first team for a period of 17 years, with a few breaks in between.
“Many clubs we started playing with in the second division either made it to the I-League or shut down, mostly the latter. They were sponsored by big corporates, while we struggle to keep afloat. Yet, 14 years later, we are the only ones left standing,” says DK Bose, president of Hindustan since 1983.
In their 14-year-stay in the second division, 2018 was the closest they have come to making it to the first division, with a core of players who have honed their skills at the club for five years or more.
Their first loss of the season came in the last match against eventual champions Real Kashmir FC, as they lost 3-2, a cruel way to bow out. The runners-up beat favourites TRAU FC and held heavyweights Ozone before their last game against RKFC in Bengaluru.
Cruelly though, while Real Kashmir have become the toast of the Indian football fraternity overnight, very few had Hindustan and their struggles in mind. In a volatile system, where clubs open and shut in a heartbeat, their commitment to the second division, without eyeballs, without a return of interest, without recognition, is an act of defiance, a refusal to curl up and die.
Bose, the long-suffering president, states that the club, is one of Delhi’s oldest (started in 1948), founded by JK Dasgupta, the first secretary of the capital’s football body. Along with Simla Youngs, New Delhi Heroes, it remains one of Delhi’s first clubs to remain operational till date.
“By the late 60’s, the club had become dormant. Dasgupta had become old and Sunil Ghosh, DSA secretary at the time, was running the club. In those days, the club used to play in Delhi’s B division, and Delhi football was not very organised,” says Bose, a former Hindustan player himself. Hindustan’s president had also appeared for the Delhi and the combined universities teams in his playing days.
Hindustan was one of two big Delhi clubs owned and run by Bengalis, the other being Raisina Sporting. Both played their B division matches at the Government of India press grounds, Minto road, next to the eponymous press, where the union budget used to be printed. The ground also played host to a series of friendly matches between the British press and the Govt. of India press, as well as Kolkata giant Mohammedan Sporting.
“My parents were both government servants and they had official accommodation provided nearby. In school, they used to say chalo, chalo, match hain. We would to go watch games riding our cycles. I entered government service [sports officer in customs and excise] in 1978 and I asked Ghosh to let me handle Raisina or Hindustan and Raisina was a much bigger name then, so he gave me Hindustan,” recollects Bose.
The three-time Delhi league champions became the first club from the capital to attract corporate sponsorship in 1996 from Finnic shoes as the likes of Coca Cola, Nestle followed. They entered the second division of the National Football League in 2003, and have played against luminaries of the local game such as Sporting Clube de Goa, Churchill Brothers, Aizawl and Neroca.
Vikrant Sharma, ex-Dempo goalkeeper and head coach of the club, appeared as a player for the club as late as 2015, as a 42-year-old. They reached the final rounds of the second division that year and the previous year, and repeated it this year.
Hindustan FC in the 2015 season.
A major disparity between Hindustan and their second division rivals lies in the paucity of resources of the Delhi club. Sharma and a physio are the only team staff while Bose says he does not have any front office or administrative personnel. Hindustan played with a 21-member squad consisting of three goalkeepers and three Under-18 players. They lost two of their key players, Nitesh Chikkara and Utkarsh Kaushik, prior to the second round.
Sharma had to make do with this bare bones of a squad but the lack of locally produced players hampers the progress of the squad. “Even though many Hindustan players are there, Delhi does not produce many players for us to scout. Manipuri, Punjabi, Kerala clubs have local talents, that reduces costs significantly. We don’t have that luxury.”
While Bose says they were inspired by Bengaluru FC to maintain their fitness which helped them remain competitive, Kundu gives credit to Aizawl’s achievements for driving his team on.
“[Liston] Colaco, the former AIFF secretary, asked me why I didn’t try for the first division. I told him I can’t sustain with my resources in the top tier,” Bose says while giving the example of Mohammedan, who have been promoted six times only to be relegated each time.
Bose reckons that with a higher budget and community backing, Hindustan can become a first division club but doesn’t rule out entry through corporate entry. “Real Kashmir has now become the team from Kashmir and everyone is ready to support them. Corporate houses have come forward to support their club. Similar, we want people to look at us as not just Hindustan but a Delhi club. When we started, we were motivated by the thought of the first division. At this point, our involvement is more due to an emotional connect to the division.”
To promote the game of football in Nagaland, department of Youth Resources & Sports may organise a football clinic for youngsters at the district and state levels soon.
DIPR reports that during a meeting of the State Level Committee (SLC) for commemoration of the 100th Birth Anniversary of Lt. Dr. T. Ao, the committee discussed the football clinic for youngsters where Under-16 selection trials will be organized at the district and state levels. The selected players will undergo intensive coaching camps before undergoing state level selection trials. After the final selection, the Under-16 probable players will undertake a series of exposure matches within and outside the state.
The committee also discussed hosting an international sports seminar in the state where international sportspersons, renowned coaches, experienced administrators and others will come under one umbrella to discuss the potential and scope of sports and plan strategies for overall development of sports.
The committee also suggested for the department of Youth Resources and Sports to implement a programme for restoration of Dr. T. Ao State Sports Awards to be held at Raj Bhavan on August 15.
Other agendas discussed were establishment of Dr. T. Ao Regional Football Academy, restoration of Dr. T. Ao Inter District Football Championships and Dr. T. Ao North East Football Trophy.
The committee entrusted the IPR Department with the responsibility of publishing a coffee table book that records the exploits, achievements, history and significant milestones of Dr. T. Ao’s career.
The meeting also discussed the proposed visit of Dr. T. Ao’s former football clubs from Guwahati and Kolkata, torch rally to all the eleven districts, lecture on Dr. T. Ao and the grand finale with the arrival of torch in the state capital and hosting of Dr. T. Ao North East Trophy.
The meeting was chaired by SLC convenor & advisor for Youth Resources & Sports, Er. Zale Neikha.
We are seriously pathetic..a captain has to beg us to go to stadiums and support our own team and meanwhile this rubbish game called cricket attracts people even though most matches are fixed..point in case Aarbaz Khan saga and many more..we will never grow as a footballing nation unless we people understand that cricket is the root of all sporting problem..
I agree that AIFF could have done a lot to improve football's image but at least we could expect general population to support our own national team..you don't need invitation to support your team..
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Miracle on Snow: I-League’s newest club from Kashmir are as real as they come
They will make their I-League bow next season after emerging champions in the second division.
It’s difficult to imagine an Indian Super League club or even an I-League club for that matter, haggling with the local fruit seller for bananas.
For Real Kashmir, with one of the smallest budgets in Indian football, first division, second or otherwise, it wasn’t a frugal measure but one borne out of sheer necessity. Crowd funding brought in the minimum funding required to set up a first-team and a couple of age group teams, but not much else.
Four years after inception, Real Kashmir just confirmed their place in the topmost tier of Indian football. There’s no fear of obscurity anymore while approaching sponsors, for they became the first team from the valley to qualify for the I-League.
The gulf in experience was a mismatch; it was the plucky valley team playing in the division for only the second year versus the perennial second division heavyweights from New Delhi, Hindustan FC. The latter will now play the second division for a record 15th season in a row, after getting pipped 3-2 in their final game.
As the rain poured down in the FSV Arena in Bengaluru, RKFC’s Scottish coach David Robertson, of Rangers and Leeds United fame, was lost for words. “Honestly, it’s a fairytale. Two years ago, there was no [first] team. Now we’re thinking about the likes of East Bengal coming over to Kashmir to play us.”
Ifham Tariq Mir and Danish Farooq, two Kashmiri lads, were on the scoresheet for their club on Thursday. This is the sort of platform that Shameem Meraj, the founder of the club and the owner of local newspaper Kashmir Monitor, sought to give the players from the state while starting Real Kashmir.
“Two years ago you would not see, in January and in snow, that you have football,” says Meraj. Cobbling together donations from local patrons and businesses, Meraj started the club in 2015, only to be pegged back by a lack of quality training facilities and curfews.
While financial constraints eased, training and match practice logistics remained a challenge. Bakshi Stadium, their home ground located next to the JK Sports Council, was closed due to the snow pouring in. The budget continued to be modest though, as nine Indians from outside the state and two foreigners were signed for a cumulative salary of three lakhs per month.
The Sports Council’s Turf would sometimes be used but lack of floodlights and snow clearance would be a challenge to the team’s training time. Robertson had to keep changing the training time from 7 am to 3 pm due to the harsh weather and curfew.
Salman Mir, the team’s manager in their first season in the second division and now with ISL side Pune City, remembers the team’s inception, “We had the smallest budget in the entire division but it was fantastic to watch a local derby (LoneStar Kashmir vs Real Kashmir). People would pack the TRC Ground in Srinagar to watch these two teams play.”
Hardly a surprise considering the immense popularity of the game in the state. The J&K League is one of the oldest in the country, running for 40 years, albeit with gaps in years where hostile conditions forced the local FA to postpone the league.
Mir says that there’s hardly a district in Kashmir which does not have kids turning out in droves for football tryouts. “Football is not only popular in Srinagar but also in Bandipora, Baramulla, Ganderbal Sopore, Budgam. We have a brand new academy and Pro license coaches like Hilal Rasool Parray coming through.”
Despite the team losing some of it’s stars, Loken Meitei, Sushil Meitei and others to ISL and I-League clubs, Real Kashmir came back stronger from the disappointment of losing out on the second division final stage by a single point last year.
The club arranged a tour to Scotland, an invaluable experience for the players and went about rebuilding the team with local players. This time, two-thirds of the squad belonged to the state and the other third contained the likes of ex-India U19 international Nadong Bhutia, who scored the vital third goal against Hindustan.
Credit must also go to the Kashmiris who have managed to make it to the big leagues. The likes of Mehrajuddin Wadoo and Ishfaq Ahmed created a path for the young guns to follow. Ishfaq, assistant manager at Jamshedpur FC says it’s important for the team to conduct shrewd transfer business ahead of the start of the I-League. “Its a fantastic achievement and we have always helped them out, supported them. I shall sit with them prior to the start of the season and talk about the new signings.”
This season, Real Kashmir went unbeaten in their group, as they romped to top spot in Group A in the preliminary stages with six wins and four draws. In the final round, the resilience showed by the team was immense.
They came back from a goal down twice, to hold Manipur’s TRAU and beat local favourites Ozone FC, to ensure that they only needed a point against Hindustan on the last match-day. Where they needed a point, they secured three as celebrations ensued.
The fairytale just got real for this club, as they come for the Mohun Bagans and the East Bengals. Football in the valley? You bet.
Real Kashmir Football Club: From anonymity to national success
Real Kashmir Football Club is the first team from the valley to qualify for I-League
In August 25, 2016, newspaper headlines from the valley screamed: “Unregistered football club gains entry into the third oldest football tournament in the word—128th Durand Cup”.
That was the year when the valley was paralysed due to unrest after the alleged encounter of militant Burhan Wani.
Cut to May 30, 2018, both the local and national papers announced the club's coming out party: “Kashmir gets football wings”.
On Wednesday, Real Kashmir Football Club became the first team from the valley to qualify for the I-League after topping the second division league. They will now play with the big boys of Indian football.
In a span of two years since their birth, the Real Kashmir Football Club—formed for a recreation purpose by two friends Sandeep Chattoo, a Kashmiri pandit and a local hotelier and Shamim Meraj, a Kashmiri Muslim—has gone on to become one of the brightest stories of sporting success from the valley in India.
This is the heartwarming story of a club whose seeds were actually sown in the aftermath of the devastating floods that submerged the valley in 2014. Meraj, who is also the editor of his family-owned local newspaper Kashmir Monitor, saw youngsters idling away their time in various nooks and crannies of Srinagar as most of the playgrounds were submerged. “I was out with my friends in the city for a stroll. We decided to do something that could engage them. I requested a couple of my friends to send footballs for them. That's when the idea of forming a small club struck me,” Meraj told THE WEEK.
And so, they formed the Real Kashmir Football Club in April 2016. Meraj received a letter from J&K Football Association that the club would represent the state in the Durand Cup at a time when almost all known clubs from the state were unwilling to participate in the tournament due to the ongoing unrest.“Interestingly, RKFC had not played a single match in the local League,” Meraj admits. “I would not have accepted that letter had I known earlier what it entails! We had no idea what goes into playing at that level. We were not prepared financially or football wise,” said Meraj.
And so they went—a ragtag team which consisted of local players, with majority from the J&K bank. That was the year when RKFC got “ hammered”, in Meraj's own words. They played against the likes of Aizawl FC, Neroca FC, Dempo SC, Army and Air Force teams and predictably ended up last. They scored four goals in five matches and conceded 14.
The lesson on how to prepare for a season was quickly learnt. “Last year (2017) was a proper season for us; we planned in advance. We held our camp in January,” said Meraj. At home, the club trains at the Tourist Reception Centre ground which is an open field with no fencing.
The founder of the club is not over the moon by this sudden attention his club is garnering. “This is just the beginning. It was a big day no doubt, but that was yesterday. We look forward to playing tomorrow. Entering I-League, which is the biggest tournament, is huge but we have problems. We do not have a stadium to train; the stadium which exists does not even have toilets. We are a small club. There's a lot that needs to be done for us to compete with the big clubs. Squad needs to be finalised, see what we can afford. We don't have a budget. We have our feet on the ground,” he said.
The team boasts of two foreign coaches: David Robertson, chief coach and former Scotland international and Glasgow Ranger's player, and an assistant coach. There's an interesting backstory to Robertson coaching the RKFC. “I got his contact through an agent.” Robertson arrived as he had never visited India. It was snowing when he arrived and when he saw the facilities, he wanted to leave. “Robertson, however, stayed on for two years,” said Meraj, with a laugh. “Sometimes the coach, too, puts his own money into the club!”
The recent success, Meraj hopes, will shake up the state government which he claims has not helped the local team in any way. “In fact, they owe us money which they had promised. Hopefully, now they will give it so that we can clear our dues.”
It is important to note that football has always been a popular sport in the valley. It has a strong history, too. The most famous player to come out of the state was Abdul Majid who captained India in the 1980s in the Nehru Cup. He played for Mohun Bagan at a time when domestic football was dominated by the two Kolkata giants and arch-rivals, Bagan and East Bengal. More recent inspirations are Mehrajuddin Wadoo and Ishfaq Ahmed—both former India Internationals from Kashmir.
The emergence of small clubs on the national football scene is no longer a rarity. Take Minerva FC, Shillong Lajong FC and Aizawl FC, for instance. RKFC are the next chapter of this story.
Those who have watched the RKFC play in tournaments describe them as a competitive team. “The local players are very good. If efforts are put in by the owners and other institutions, they can be a very good team. In fact, it just proves that the gap between the big teams and small teams in terms of performance and talent is not so huge,” said football author and commentator Novy Kapadia, who thinks the Army could engage better with local youth by supporting the cause of football in the valley.
But the challenges small clubs face are huge—from getting better players, better facilities, retaining coaches and having a proper support staff, to be part of the “elite club” requires big bucks. “It's laughable,” said Meraj when asked about the club's annual budget. “What is the budget of Mohun Bagan?” He thought hard and said, “Our budget is probably two per cent of that.”
Financial limitations, however, have not affected the spirit of the club owners. With no assistance from the AIFF or the state government, Meraj depended a lot on “quiet support from his friends and friendly crowd funding”. He is an alumni of the St Stephens College in Delhi, and relies a lot on his network of friends all over India. “When we travel, my friends help me to sort out the team's stay in hotels and other logistics,” he revealed.
Meraj sounded off with a request to the J&K Football Association to open up the local super division league for outsiders. RKFC boasts of players from Sikkim and Punjab. Currently, only people from Jammu and Kashmir are allowed to play in the local league. “It's important for local players to have exposure by playing with players from other states.”
14 years a slave: The story of Hindustan FC’s ‘emotional’ stay in Indian football’s 2nd division
Hindustan have stayed for 14 years in the second division, in a turbulent environment where a lot of their contemporaries have shut down.
“Tan, Dhan, Mann sab Hindustan se hain. Agar woh mere bure din mein sahara diye hai, toh mera bhi farz banta hai ki main bhi unke acche ya bure din mein sahara doon. (My body, wealth, mind belongs to Hindustan. If they have helped me through my bad days, then it’s my responsibility to be there with them for the good or bad times.)”
Pushpender Kundu struggles to remember the exact nature of his beginnings with Hindustan. The 39-year-old central defender and captain of the Delhi-based-second division club has been associated with the first team for a period of 17 years, with a few breaks in between.
“Many clubs we started playing with in the second division either made it to the I-League or shut down, mostly the latter. They were sponsored by big corporates, while we struggle to keep afloat. Yet, 14 years later, we are the only ones left standing,” says DK Bose, president of Hindustan since 1983.
Their first loss of the season came in the last match against eventual champions Real Kashmir FC, as they lost 3-2, a cruel way to bow out. The runners-up beat favourites TRAU FC and held heavyweights Ozone before their last game against RKFC in Bengaluru.
Cruelly though, while Real Kashmir have become the toast of the Indian football fraternity overnight, very few had Hindustan and their struggles in mind. In a volatile system, where clubs open and shut in a heartbeat, their commitment to the second division, without eyeballs, without a return of interest, without recognition, is an act of defiance, a refusal to curl up and die.
Bose, the long-suffering president, states that the club, is one of Delhi’s oldest (started in 1948), founded by JK Dasgupta, the first secretary of the capital’s football body. Along with Simla Youngs, New Delhi Heroes, it remains one of Delhi’s first clubs to remain operational till date.
“By the late 60’s, the club had become dormant. Dasgupta had become old and Sunil Ghosh, DSA secretary at the time, was running the club. In those days, the club used to play in Delhi’s B division, and Delhi football was not very organised,” says Bose, a former Hindustan player himself. Hindustan’s president had also appeared for the Delhi and the combined universities teams in his playing days.
“My parents were both government servants and they had official accommodation provided nearby. In school, they used to say chalo, chalo, match hain. We would to go watch games riding our cycles. I entered government service [sports officer in customs and excise] in 1978 and I asked Ghosh to let me handle Raisina or Hindustan and Raisina was a much bigger name then, so he gave me Hindustan,” recollects Bose.
The three-time Delhi league champions became the first club from the capital to attract corporate sponsorship in 1996 from Finnic shoes as the likes of Coca Cola, Nestle followed. They entered the second division of the National Football League in 2003, and have played against luminaries of the local game such as Sporting Clube de Goa, Churchill Brothers, Aizawl and Neroca.
Vikrant Sharma, ex-Dempo goalkeeper and head coach of the club, appeared as a player for the club as late as 2015, as a 42-year-old. They reached the final rounds of the second division that year and the previous year, and repeated it this year.
A major disparity between Hindustan and their second division rivals lies in the paucity of resources of the Delhi club. Sharma and a physio are the only team staff while Bose says he does not have any front office or administrative personnel. Hindustan played with a 21-member squad consisting of three goalkeepers and three Under-18 players. They lost two of their key players, Nitesh Chikkara and Utkarsh Kaushik, prior to the second round.
Sharma had to make do with this bare bones of a squad but the lack of locally produced players hampers the progress of the squad. “Even though many Hindustan players are there, Delhi does not produce many players for us to scout. Manipuri, Punjabi, Kerala clubs have local talents, that reduces costs significantly. We don’t have that luxury.”
While Bose says they were inspired by Bengaluru FC to maintain their fitness which helped them remain competitive, Kundu gives credit to Aizawl’s achievements for driving his team on.
“[Liston] Colaco, the former AIFF secretary, asked me why I didn’t try for the first division. I told him I can’t sustain with my resources in the top tier,” Bose says while giving the example of Mohammedan, who have been promoted six times only to be relegated each time.
Bose reckons that with a higher budget and community backing, Hindustan can become a first division club but doesn’t rule out entry through corporate entry. “Real Kashmir has now become the team from Kashmir and everyone is ready to support them. Corporate houses have come forward to support their club. Similar, we want people to look at us as not just Hindustan but a Delhi club. When we started, we were motivated by the thought of the first division. At this point, our involvement is more due to an emotional connect to the division.”
Football clinic for youngsters in the offing
DIPR reports that during a meeting of the State Level Committee (SLC) for commemoration of the 100th Birth Anniversary of Lt. Dr. T. Ao, the committee discussed the football clinic for youngsters where Under-16 selection trials will be organized at the district and state levels. The selected players will undergo intensive coaching camps before undergoing state level selection trials. After the final selection, the Under-16 probable players will undertake a series of exposure matches within and outside the state.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/football/top-stories/abuse-us-criticise-us-but-please-get-involved-sunil-chhetri-appeals-to-indian-football-fans/articleshow/64430949.cms
HIGHLIGHTS
Take it to tier 2 and you will see the real support.
Cricket has nothing to do with any sports decline it's a myth and an excuse.