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V Gangadhar

Football, magnificent football

Readers of my column may be familiar with the fact that cricket has always been my first and permanent love. But I had flirted with other games too, particularly football and badminton. And as the Paris World Cup approaches, I often think of some of my football encounters.

During most of my early boyhood, which was spent in villages and small towns in Tamil Nadu, I seldom played cricket or football. Along with the other village boys, I spent my time playing gilli danda, goli (marbles) balin chadu gudu (hututu), Pandi (hopscotch) and kannamoochi (a rural version of I Spy). These were inexpensive games, did not need any investment and could be played anywhere.

I was around eight or nine when I discovered cricket. This was at Tambaram, a suburb of Madras. The neighbourhood boys were playing this 'unusual' game and they invited me to join. I did and never looked back. Even in those days, Madras was obsessed with cricket and middle class Brahmin boys did not play any other games.

My first brush with football was when my uncle Ramachandran, who was only two years older, visited us in Tambaram. Now, Ambi as he was called, was an out and out Keralite, having been born and brought up in Ernakulam. The Keralites, then and now, are more addicted to football than any other game on earth and my uncle was no exception. He extolled the virtues of the game and persuaded my father to buy us a football.

It was difficult to lure the neighbourhood boys from cricket, but some of them finally joined us and we practised at an open space near our school. Ambi mama was the star player, manager and coach and finally he shaped an eleven-member team. I was asked to keep goal, an assignment which I liked.

We began looking out for competitive football. Some boys who lived near the Tambaram Railway colony watched us practicing and challenged us for a rag-tag outfit. The backs, halfbacks and the forwards hated to part with the ball and ultimately surrendered it to the opponents.

Our first match was played on the Railway colony football ground. It was an hour-long game with a ten-minute break for water. We were no match for the Railway Colony boys team and were walloped by six goals to nothing. They seemed to have magic in their feet and wove patterns around us. My uncle, the captain, tried his best to stem the tide of goals, but failed. Our defence was so weak that the opposing forwards had free access to the ball near the goalmouth and scored as they pleased. Even a goalkeeper like Lev Yashin could not have saved the balls which went past me into the net.

After half-time, my uncle had a brain wave. He switched the positions of some of the players and the changes were quite drastic. I was no longer the goalie, but was made the centre forward. From saving goals, I was now expected to score goals. We tried our best. In fact, I did succeed with a couple of solo runs, came close to the opponent's goalmouth, but faltered at the last moment.

I faced a particular problem. While playing out of the goal, I could not head the ball. Everytime, I competed with an opponent in a heady duel, there was a collision of craniums which left me shaken! On the rare occasions when I actually headed the ball, I felt my neck would disappear into my body!

Yet, football was a thrilling experience. I began to read more about the game. Whenever I was with my uncle and cousin Dorai, we discussed football both in India and abroad and we 'named' ourselves after famous foreign players. For instance, Ambi Mama was Stanley Matthews, the magical English right-winger. I was happy to be the dashing centre forward, Nat Lofthouse, while Dorai ran around calling himself, Tom Finney. We had our own clubs too. I favoured Aston Villa, Mama's club was Arsenal while Dorai favoured the Wolverhampton Wanderers, all from the English league.

Such obsession with foreign football did not mean I ignored Indian football. Here too we regarded ourselves as avatars of dashing centre forward Mewalal, scheming inside left Ahmed Khan and flying winger Venkatesh, all of whom played for the famous Calcutta clubs, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. Another favourite was the handsome and stylish Olympian, Varadaraj, who kept goal for the Bangalore Blues.

I really got in the game when father was transferred to Fort Cochin where we spent nearly four years. There was hardly any cricket, Kerala was thrashed and thrown out of the Ranji Trophy in the first round itself. But the football! Even at the school level, there were titanic struggles between our Santacruz High School and its arch-rival, the more uppity, St John De Britto High School.

Our team often played barefoot, yet regularly defeated the more sophisticated Britto Boys who wore boots. My throat, after the matches, was hoarse. How much I screamed and shouted, 'Flying goalie up, bullet Davy up up' and so on. How proud I was that two members of the school team, goalkeeper George Thomas and right-winger Archibald Roberts were in my class.

Both Fort Cochin and Ernakulam organised All-India football tournaments. I watched Bashir of Hindustan Aircraft, Shanmugam of Sullivan Police, Bangalore, goalie Thangaraj of the Madras Regimental Centre, Wellington, forward Thangaraj of Wimco Sports Club, Madras, and our own star players from the Cannanore Clubs, Lucky Star and Spirited Youths. The night never seemed to end as we celebrated the shock victory of Lucky Star over the legendary Mohun Bagan in a Calicut football tournament.

Despite my growing love for the game, I could not play much football. At the Palghat Victoria College, I often practised with the team, but being in the cricket team was more than enough for me. And when the little finger on my right hand was fractured and could not be straightened properly, I had to give up the game. But the golden moments continued.

When Caltex, Bombay, won the Rovers Cup during the 1950s with a historic win over the famed Hyderabad Police, goalie Purushottaman and star forward Antony were my personal friends. Antony had been a student at Victoria College. That day, my cup of happiness overflowed. Only when I watched Maradona score that unbelievable goal against England in the 1986 World Cup did I feel so happy again.