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Kolkata is now in the clutches of a football fever due to the World Cup Football Tournament. It is true that India’s success in team games at the international level is few and far between but that does not deter us Calcuttans from making merry and reveling in the great spirit of international football that expresses the joy of life! In this respect we are like the Brazilians whom we support like mad and celebrate their victory as our own.

India had an opportunity to play at the World Cup level way back in 1950 but could not compete as players at that time played not with boots but with bare feet. In 1952 India was thrashed in the Olympics by Hungary 10-1 in a totally one-sided match. My statistics may be somewhat mistaken but what I am trying to establish here is the fact that the country’s exposure to and success at the international soccer level has somewhat subsided since that glorious win in the 1962 Jakarta Asian Games.

Professionalism has to enter Kolkata football in particular and Indian football in general in order to be successful at the South Asian level, leave alone the Asian level. Players of Indian origin playing in different international leagues have to be attracted to India to represent the national team. This can be done according to a recent FIFA ruling.

Kolkata will now spend exactly one month in a sleepless state of mind. No torpor and no weakening of the flesh now that the World Cup is on. The city wall left unharmed during the just-concluded State Legislative Assembly Polls will now be adorned with the pictures of Kolkata favorite football stars.

Crowds will gather in street corners to watch the matches while the youth clubs will be in business in full swing. The newspapers will carry no other stories almost other than football while the myriad local television channels will also follow suit.

The morning markets will be buzzing with expert opinions regarding strategies, movements, skill and stamina levels and countless other technical details of international football that even famous professional coaches do not quite understand. Calcuttans will turn football experts overnight and deliver solemn judgments on the follies of players and officials alike.

The ongoing cricket test match series between India and the West Indies in the Caribbean will take a back seat for the once. The popular gaze will be diverted from cricket to football and all attention will be riveted on Brazil while England, Argentina, Germany and France may receive peripheral attention. The matches are being telecast at 6:30 pm, 9:30 pm and 12:30 am. So the first two slots may quite easily be viewed by the soccer fans of Kolkata.

Scholars have repeatedly drawn our attention to the fact in popular newspaper articles that we should not get unduly carried over by the World Cup as India is not playing in the tournament. But the common man would not listen to such talk of sanity and would jump in the first instance to support his dream team.

As such Kolkata has a rich tradition of football that goes back quite sometime in history. Nobody has forgotten how Mohun Bagan’s victory over a colonial team in the 1911 IFA Shield was identified with the Indian national liberation movement. The three giants of Indian football were born in this City. So we do share a formidable heritage of football culture.

But excessive politics has marred football like the other popular pursuits of Indian life like art and culture, plays, music and films. Too much political interference and meddling has not led to any positive results for Indian football. For that reason and a lack of vision we have slipped continuously in international football standards.

But Kolkata will finally have something to cheer during the sleepless nights and sleepy hours in offices and shops and elsewhere. Bleary-eyed individuals will argue endlessly about the complicated technical aspects of the game and smash their unworthy opponents in this process!

The local economy has also perked up. Television sets, laptops, digital cameras, DVDs, mobile telephones, air-conditioners and even refrigerators are selling like crazy. The unique selling point is a World Cup to World Cup warranty offer that most find rather irresistible. On top of everything is the offer to watch the World Cup live for the lucky draw winners.

This angle is being covered by the soft drink manufacturing companies that are promising its customers that the lucky few would be flown to watch the World Cup free of cost. This has caused quite a stir in Kolkata nowadays. It is true that the World Cup is an international festival that is repeated every four years when the spirit of football reigns supreme and allows us to forget our petty daily sorrows and anxieties and foreboding. It is a great unifier that makes us overcome our everyday defeats and hopelessness in a great and often faceless City.

So let us also join the spirit of the game and shout Long Live Football! The alleys and by-alleys of Kolkata are resounding now with shouts for the different foreign teams whose payers have perhaps not even heard of India let alone Kolkata. But let the music play on in this hapless and miserable City whose Gods have nearly all died young, leaving us inconsolate and inconclusive. Let us not forget the old man who came to watch his favorite team lift the Kolkata Football League after he had concluded the funeral rites of his young son who died an untimely death. Football is a great democratic game that can raise one to moments of greatness or despair etched forever in history.   

June 10, 2006

Image by Ryan McVay under license with Gettyimages.com

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