Let's Broaden Our Footballing Knowledge.
- Thread starter Squiggles
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Do you follow the football in India, Dmishra - National Football League and the Santosh Trophy? I used to follow it diligently in the 90's when I lived in India . Was a big fan of Kerala Police under I M Vijayan.
Lost track of it when I came to US. Now I have a couple of Bengali colleagues who are hardcore East Bengal fans and get very aggressive whenever I mention Mohun Bagan 🙂)
They talk fondly of the stories of the calcutta derby rivarly.
India has a strong history and fanbase in football especially in Kerala and Bengal . Unfortunately our national team is crap and that is why people outside of India dont know much about the passion in the sport here.
My Bengali colleagues constantly tell me some ace stories about the East Bengal Mohun Bagan rivalry in the Salt Lake City Stadium. The stadium has a capacity of 120000 which is full for the derby. Apparently East Bengal fans ( who are second generation bangadeshi immigrants) prefer a specific type of fish whereas Mohun Bagan fans ( traditional Kolkattans) prefer to eat another variety of fish. So when any team loses in the derby the winning teams fans would go out and hang dead fishes of that specific type on the door step of the fans of the team which loses 🙂)
I used to follow Kerala Police in early 90s as I was born in Kerala - very near the place where V. P. Sathyan and I. M. Vijayan were born. When Kerala Police became defunct in the 1990s I stopped following Indian football. I used to watch some games of East Bengal and JCT Mills as Vijayan, Joe Paul Ancheri played for them, but could never support them passionately.
It was in that vacuum that I started following the premier league and became a liverpool fan.
The biggest problem in Kerala football is the politics and financial mismanagement leading to clubs becoming defunct as it runs into heavy losses. However now I have learned that another club Kannur Brothers which used to play in the North Kerala Malabar League has been taken over by investors who plan to invest to take them to the Indian football league. If they succeed it will be awesome for me.
I used to a long time ago. Not at all these days. It's mostly a joke anyway, which is sad given that there're some very talented players to be found at school level, none of whom ever take up the sport, owing to the complete unviability of a career in the game here.
Yeah, this is going great. Scratch me off this. I barely have time to watch us play these days.
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