The Beautiful Game

     It was in 1971 that I picked up my first football hero- Warren de Prazer, with Elvisesque sideburns, rumoured to have been 23 years old in Class XI, and my school captain. He looked something like 7 feet tall but  I can't be quite sure because  to any seven year old, the boys in Class XI never looked to be under six. Herded in single files from our primary section for  the 3 to 3.45 pm afternoon matches, I  just adored him. De Nobili never lost a match at  home that year -  at least in the matches I kept vigil . And I never missed a single day in school that year. 

     The captain in 1972 was Derek Hamilton, not as tall as Warren ( probably because I had also grown an inch or two over  the year) and started off well. But when on a drizzly morning  we played host to St. Vincent's and  lost 4-0, with poor Madhususdan of Class VIII under the bar, I wept inconsolably and declared Derek to be a mere mortal.  It would take me over a decade after that  to have another genuine football hero.

     I did play football, loved the game passionately, and even watched the Seven A Side tournaments in my local mohalla.  The football matches were also  occasions to enjoy the rains and slush- the usual schoolboy's delights. My Bengali friends who wore their pants from their navels,  buttoned their collars, ate too many  boiled eggs and were bananas about  fish,  harmonia and tablas excitedly talked about a few  star footballers  from the three Calcutta Clubs.  But I could neither  follow Bengali commentary nor read  Bengali print in Jugantar. I was also not one for this low level equilibrium trap of stardom, and when Sardar Inder Singh's Punjab blanked Bengal 6-0 in Santosh  Trophy in 1974, I ceased to think much about the Maidan Clubs or their stars like Subhash Bhowmick, Samaresh, Habib,  et al. More often, the Maidan violence would make as much news as football and even a match between Mohun Bagan and Cosmos did not do much to change my affection for the Maidan stars.

     Meanwhile I  continued to follow World Cup quadrennially since 1974 and my first favourite team was Holland under Johan Cruyff. The 1978 World Cup was as famous for an Argentine triumph as it was  for the mysterious 6-0 victory over Peru,  and had thrown  up a moustachioed star in Mario Kempes . The  1982  was memorable for a Brazilian team touted to be the best team which never won. It was also for the first time that I picked up a hero to cheer - Zico, also called the White Pele in a quirky race reversal. But after that, for more than a decade, and even now, it has been  the diminutive giant Diego Maradona all the way. Since then a host of stars like Ronaldo the Brazilian, Ronaldhino, Robert Baggio, Gary Linekar, Jurgen Klinsman, Kaka,   Enzo Francezoli, Schifo, Platini, Zidanne came close to him, one Lionel Messi even replaced him but none could eclipse him. He has remained there ever since, holding the World Cup with a hand that he claims was given by God.

     I was destined to reconnect with the Calcuttans'  craze for football  when I got a job  in this state and came over in 1990. Football was  as much a part of a Bengali's life as were  Ranindrasangeet, politics, Durga Puja, fish ( its smell, taste, weight and price),  bad stomach,  and homeopathy. It had given them a taste of anti colonial success which cricket never gave when in 1911 Mohun Bagan won the IFA Shield defeating  the British clubs- its enduring memory would even make up for the loss of shifting of capital from Calcutta which was announced within a few months. Football was discussed and debated- in buses, in shops, amongst hawkers of Gariahat and shopkeepers at Bata outlets and even amongst ladies waiting for their wards outside the school gates. Our son Tanuj took to this game and as parents we even went to watch a few  matches.

     Football in Bengal is absolutely crazy. The people are united in their love for football and divided over support to either  Mohun Bagan or  East Bengal. With the shifting of football from Maidan to Salt Lake Stadium, there has been  a dip in the fortunes of Mohammedan Sporting Club who no more remain the force they were till the mid 1970s. I saw this rivalry at very close quarters during the Derby or boro  matches at the Salt Lake stadium, especially during 1994 -1996. I had a  taste  of it even earlier  when I was in the city briefly in 1982 and we had won a match  against Malaysia in the Asiad. I was travelling in a Mini when suddenly  I saw an altercation because an East Bengal supporter could not stomach the comment that the goal scorer was a Mohun Bagan player. My borrowed erudition about football, Bengali nationalist movement and Mohun Bagan's 1911 IFA victory was at once put in its place by a virulently acerbic East Bengali tongue and flailing arms which pointed out that the real stars of that team were of East Bengal stock.

     But much as I could understand the passion amongst  the Bengalis for football, and even the rivalry on club lines, I could never fathom why they were so one - sided in their support for Brazil. Right from my school days, I heard my school friends support only Brazil. When I came to Bengal, the position was the same. I thought that probably as an extension of their great nationalist past and leftist orientation, the Bengalis  would root for South Americans who were the only challengers to the White European supremacy , especially the Anglo Teutonic. It was but understandable the romanticism around Che Guevara  or the love for Garcia Marquez ,  the  revolutionary and the literary in  a Bengali would egg him  to support a Latin American country- but why only Brazil I always wondered. Fine, their samba brand of artistic football , from the days of Garrincha and Pele , could make Brazil a favourite. But such  an overwhelming one? It was not quite cricket. It took the  sublime genius of Maradona and Messi to dent this support , but just that bit. 

     Couldn't there  have been any other choice? The Goans have no qualms about supporting their colonial masters Portugal so why can't  the Bengalis  root  for the English whose language they claim to  have mastered as much as any British and for whom the celebration of  Shakespeare continues to be a celebration of their own lives? What about Germany? Could not legions of Netaji's supporters pitch in for  the Germans?  And why not for Holland, my first favourite in international football  ? And couldn't anyone see that this was the weakest Brazilian side in anybody's memory? Okay, one doesn't want to drag this too much- a mother doesn't leave her weak child  after all.

     One day this all-eggs -in -one basket  madness would explode in the face. And  it did. Yesterday, the Germans blitzkrieg handed a 7-1 rout. It broke the back of a country- it shattered its most fanatical supporters. It was unprecedented, quite unexpected .  Brazil has  gone  into a national mourning, there could be some incidents of violence  and  the loss would most definitely trigger a baby boom .

    But out here, people have  reacted on fairly expected lines. The only reason for such a loss, they feel,  is that the team has been bought over.  My friend's  driver clearly stated, " Gaarmany poysha khaiyechhe oder." ( Germany has bought them over with money).

     No, this is not a one off reaction. I have seen it happen so many times and have even come up with a standard template of fan's reactions to humiliating losses  in football matches. It runs like this:

First goal- abuse the referee ( shuarer bacchaa or son of a swine)

Second goal- abuse the referee  ( Khankir  chhele) or son of a hussy,  his female relatives and accuse him of  being purchased  ( ghooshkhor  or bribe taker)

Third goal - abuse your own players and  the coach, throw the chairs from the gallery, assault  the team management and head for the Team Bus to smash it. If one could not do any of these, hang around and stay back to avoid the khisti  or  ridicule and abuse in the para, and probably inside the house by the spouse.

     I am still wondering where it all could have led had there been seven goals in that match when I had to save the Mohun Bagan players,  their bus and Tutu Bose.