Not that I love cricket...

"YOU watch cricket and tennis telecasts silently, so why make so much noise while watching football on TV?" my wife asked me. I had shouted myself hoarse while watching France defeat Portugal, my favourite team in the Euro Cup semi-final. With Portugal's exit, my interest in the tournament waned.

Yes, there is something special about football which brings out the "beast" in me. I agonised when my favourite players collapsed on the turf, the victims of brutal tackles. I screamed when "incompetent" referees awarded penalties during the closing stages of a game as it happened in the France vs Portugal encounter. I exulted rather loudly when brilliant goals were scored.

Yes, football is the game for the masses and it arouses fierce passions. Of course, it is a pity that these passions lead to the kind of hooliganism let loose by English fans of the game. The football fanatic can snarl, shout, shake his clenched fists but not carry these emotions outside the stadium. I admit I had been a cricket fanatic for several decades, but give me a good game of football, particularly the Latin American variety, and I forget all about cricket, that too the one-day "tamasha".

Unlike cricket, which I played at the college and office levels, I had never played serious football. Yet, it had been a part of my boyhood. It was so easy to play, even in the absence of a genuine football. A tennis ball, a rubber ball was enough though one's feet hurt badly while coming into contact with stones and thorns on the rough playing surface. Playing with the real "thing" was a revelation, at last you had something to kick around.

In my boyhood, I always played more cricket than football. The earliest memories of playing football were in Tambaram during a visit of my uncle (he was only two years senior to me) Ramachandran from Ernakulam. Since boys from Kerala knew more of football, he helped to assemble a team. Someone brought a football and we practised. Our first match was against the boys of the Tambaram Railway Colony, we lost by six goals to one. I kept goal for some time, then wanted more of the action. Switching to the forward line, I scored the only consolation goal for my team.

My next involvement with the game came when father was posted to Fort Cochin and I joined the Santa Cruz High School. Cochin was clearly football territory, no school fielded a cricket team. Santa Cruz High School was the local champion and the annual match against the more sophisticated St. John De Britto High School had all the flair and tension of a Mohun Bagan vs East Bengal match. I was not good enough for the team, but was one of its leading cheerleaders. "Flying-goalie John" was in my class, so was another player, Archibald Roberts. Ace striker, "Bullet Davy" and the formidable captain George were my other heroes. What huge crowds the annual Santa Cruz vs Britto match attracted. In one of these matches, Britto led 2 - 1 at half-time and I went home, literally in tears. Yet my school made a stirring comeback and won 4-2. I missed most of it, but who bothered. We had won!

Inside the classroom, the football heroes were ordinary boys from poor families. They wore dirty dhotis and shirts and walked barefoot. In fact, they also played football barefoot. The Britto boys were from more affluent families and included a sprinkling of "genuine" Anglo-Indians who spoke fluent English and played in football boots. But once they were on the field, these class distinctions disappeared and my heroes, most of the time, emerged victorious.

Thanks to The Hindu and Sport & Pastime I closely followed national and international football. Names like Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney, Nat Lofthouse and Stan Mortenson became familiar, so did the names of famous English league clubs like Arsenal, Aston Villa, Bolton Wanderers and Blackpool Rovers. English league football and the FA Cup matches were well covered in the Indian media.

No Kerala youngster could ignore the football scene nearer home. So many of "our" players were stars in Calcutta, Bangalore and Madras. Proudly I followed the careers of Balagopal and Janardanan of Cannanore's Lucky Star Club who signed for WIMCO, Madras. Even more thrilling was the progress of one of my collegemates, Anthony, again of Cannanore, who wore the colours of Caltex, Bombay. The club created history when it defeated the formidable Hyderabad Police who had established a stranglehold on the Rovers Cup.

Unfortunately, while our fortunes in cricket looked up, it was a steady decline in football. Today, we are nowhere in the game. When I compare the performances of the European and Latin American type of football, with our own Calcutta league variety, I feel depressed. No skills, no stamina, no shooting powers.

There are no crowds for the Rovers Cup in Mumbai. What a contrast to my college days, when Calicut's Sait Nagjee Amarsee football tournament attracted huge crowds which watched enthralled Lucky Star defeat the famed Mohun Bagan and the deadly free kicks of Quayyum Chengazi of the Karachi Kickers Club.

What was my contribution to our football? Hardly anything. Occasionally, I practised with the college teams. This stopped when, practising as a goalkeeper, I fractured the little finger of my right hand. Palakadu hospital doctors messed up the treatment and the finger, even today, remains bent!

But the game had eventful memories. The entire Dempo Sports Club, Goa, was in love with pretty Alba D'souza, my secretary at Reader's Digest. She stringed them along, took me to the Rovers Club matches, finally married a shippie and lived happily thereafter. An unpleasant memory was the night of the World Cup final between Germany and Argentina some years back. While engrossed in the telecast, we heard screams.

One of our neighbours who suffered from mental problems, poured kerosene all over her body and burnt herself to death. There was no more football that night.

V. GANGADHAR

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