Why Bengal is obsessed with football? | Research News,The Indian Express
“As such, tracing the changing nature of football in Bengal is in many ways an exercise in tracing the history of the region itself,” writes sports historian Paul Dimeo. Football remains at the heart of the history that defines modern-day Bengal.
Bengal’s obsession with football is hardly a matter of secret. Those who have not been fortunate enough to meet a Bengali football fan, have clearly missed the passion with which he or she details out their love for Mohun Bagan or East Bengal, depending on whichever side of the border going through modern-day Bengal they originate from. Just as the world gears up for FIFA 2018, yet another instance of unusual football fan behaviour was reported from Bengal. Tea-seller Shiv Shankar Patra of North 24 Parganas district, another die-hard fan of Messi, has painted his house in the team’s blue and white colours. Even the interiors of his house have been done up to display his love for Messi and Maradona. All over Kolkata the FIFA fanfare is noted in the posters and street art on display showcasing the various clubs and heroes who are part of the game.
READ IN BANGLA: ফুটবলে আচ্ছন্ন বাংলা: শুধু খেলা? না জাতীয় চেতনা?
So what explains this exceptional love affair that Bengal has for a sport in which India is yet to participate at the highest level? Football, just like cricket, badminton, lawn tennis and table tennis, is a sport handed down to Indians by the erstwhile colonial rulers. The British had started playing the sport in India in the late nineteenth century, and often used the football field as the ideal space to display their superiority over the ‘natives’, particularly the Bengalis, whom they characterised as effeminate and lacking in ideal physical attributes. By the turn of the century, however, this same sport became a means through which the Bengalis expressed their nationalistic fervour. “As such, tracing the changing nature of football in Bengal is in many ways an exercise in tracing the history of the region itself,” writes sports historian Paul Dimeo in his article, ‘Football and politics in Bengal: Colonialism, nationalism, communalism.’ Football remains at the heart of the history that defines modern-day Bengal.
It was the British army, garrisoned at Fort William, that played the foremost role in introducing football to Calcutta. Getting trained in the sports was considered necessary to build the desired physical attributes among soldiers. Overtime though, football had become a favourite leisure sport among European civilians in the city, including merchants, civil servants and missionaries who began forming clubs from the 1870s.
Consequently, the Calcutta Football Club (CFC) was founded in 1872. In 1878, members of the Indian Civil Service started the Dalhousie Club. Traders Club, Calcutta Rangers, the Armenian Club are few other examples of the ways different parts of European society in India established their own football clubs. Simultaneously, a number of competitions were also organised for these teams to contest in for instance, the Durand Cup and the Trades Cup. The Indian Football Association (IFA) was also established soon after, to act as an overarching governing body that set the rules and regulations to be followed by football players in India.
Rating: 5