by nirmal nath : bangalore is now infatuated to anil kumble and rahul dravid, because cricket has since long grabbed the city. young generation hardly knows about great footballers produced by bangalore, like sarangapani raman, ahmed khan, ma sattar, p venkatesh, kp dhanraj, mariappa kempaiah, isaiah arumainayagamand so on. they are not to blame as most of these olympians earned fame and gem playing for bengal instead of bangalore. bengaluru cantonment : like bengal, hyderabad and mumbai, "garden city" bangalore, now bengaluru, was nursery of quality footballers during "golden era" of indian football. football tradition of the city is much older than cricket. in "20s football was under the supervision of bengaluru football association. later it became mysore state football association and after that it was renamed as karnataka state football association. bengaluru had some very good clubs in the early decades till 1950s. clubs were bangalore muslims, bangalore crescents, bangalore mars, bangalore police, bangalore blues, bangalore sporting and mysore rovers. bangalore muslims had big contribution to develop and promote football in the state (see chapter on bangalore muslims). in '70s office club iit was a force to reckon in club football. the then mysore state, renamed as karnataka on november 1, 1973, was enriched by footballers from bengaluru. mysore has gifted as many as twelve olympians in the golden era of indian football and bengaluru had the proud privilege to produce all these olympians, what kolkata could not. incidentally bengaluru football started losing its sheen since late "70s". bengaluru is divided into two parts - bengaluru city and bengaluru cantonment. in '20s and '30s football was very popular both in the cantonment and city areas, though much of it was played on the sullivan and garrison grounds in the cantonment. in the city, football was popular around ymca grounds and cubbonpet. the cantonment area of bengaluru was players providing centre of the state. the first olympians for the country came from austin town. great players like raman, thulukhanamm shanmugham, kannayan and j anthony, who came out of austin town ground, were part of the 1948 and 1952 olympics. two olympians kv varadarajan and bn vajravellu were from city area of okalipalya. sa basheer, ma sattar, p venkatesh, kp dhanraj and m kempaiah were from ulsool and gowthampura of cantonment area. ahmed khan was also of cantonment area, but of different place. of the twelve olympians, seven made it in 1948 london olympics, and two others in 1952 helsinki olympics. p venkatesh, ma sattar and j anthony of bengaluru represented the country in olympics on behalf of bengal. austin town, murphy town, ulsool and gowthampura, all are of different parts of cantonment. the great tradition of bengaluru cantonment, producing olympians and internationals, got its flavour from innumerable tournaments organised there. the stafford cup and the ashgold cup tournaments were very popular. royal air force personnel used to play with local teams for the ashgold cup, which drew big crowds. it is said that, the british army brought italian prisoners in the early ?40s to bengaluru. they were put up at the garrison grounds, today's parade grounds-cubbon road area. while serving their term, the italians had to play football. locals who worked for the british in their homes would play against the prisoners in friendly contests. the locals were always barefooted, but the italians in boots. yet the locals were expected to win and they did so. great players came out of this classical culture moment enacted in the cantonment - raman, basheer and anthony. from cultures so different, to make all discord seem irrelevant. role of industries : during '60s and '70s, industrial houses had elevated the tradition of bengaluru football. industries such as iit, hal, bel, bhel, beml, hmt, ngef, ada, ade, cil, meg, binny mills and others set up their own football clubs. it was around this time that output from districts started declining and what little football was played in bengaluru, it was in the cantonment area. in the '50s and '60s, there were no permanent jobs for the footballers. football was considered from the amusement point of view only. as soon as the industries came out with the assignment to the footballers, focus concentrated on job prospects and thereby standard of the players began declining in the late ?70s. industrial houses were not to blame, because after getting jobs footballers became reluctant for hard practice and strive for the best. the standard of football during '40s, '50s and '60s were high, considering the fact that in this period mysore won the santosh trophy four times in 1947, 1953, 1968 and 1969 and every time they annexed the title beating bengal in the finals. mysore also grasped the position of runners-up for five times during this period. last time they appeared in the senior national final in 1976 and incidentally lost to bengal. there was a tournament in the early '60s, called pentangular tournament held every year among four southern states of india and ceylon (now sri lanka). mysore won the title twice since its inception, in 1960 and 1961, defeating hyderabad and became runners-up in 1963, losing to hyderabad. the tournament lasted only for four years. now bengaluru is as inundated by the cricket as "tsunami waves". although football has been confined to austin town and gowthampura only, yet young boys are not refrained from playing football. one "football guru" thyagarajan has been organising a free coaching camp at the austin town grounds for more than 25 years. karnataka state football association tried to revive the interest among young boys by organising 2004 federation cup with sincere effort, but unfortunate death of brazilian striker christiano de lima junior while playing the final marred everything. now parents are more scared of sending their wards to play football. stafford cup : the staffordshire regiment stationed in bengaluru in the late '20s, had gifted the cup to the then bangalore football association. the cup was made of pure silver. this unique piece of silverware was named after the regiment as stafford cup. the stafford challenge cup was first played in the late '20s and continued till '70s. it became irregular after that. it was the oldest football tournament in the south and was considered as southern counterpart of prestigious durand cup. the late '70s saw memorable matches and none more than the east bengal-iraqi youth club final battle. it was almost a 'war' as east bengal's line-up had three famous iranians - majid baskar, jamshed nassiri and md. khabaji. the two neighbouring countries iran and iraq have long enmity and that reflected in the game. the stands were packed with supporters of iranian and iraqi nationalities. however iraqi youth club won the final. they didn't return next year to defend the title, but sent the cup back through the iraq air force. they won the cup in 1980 beating mohun bagan and successfully defended the title in 1981, but never returned the unique piece of silverware after repeated request. at last the iraq air force authorities informed that the cup had been destroyed in the iraq-iran war that spanned over a decade. east bengal won the tournament in 1989 and was presented with a new piece of silverware trophy, not even a replica of the original cup. (source: "history of indian football" written by veteran soccer journalist nirmal nath) buy the book to know more about history of indian football then e-mail to (nath_nirmal2008@rediffmail.com) for details.
