TIRUCHY: A sunny Sunday morning. Boots thud against the ground, jerseys cling to sweaty backs, and a dozen pairs of legs dart after a football. A midfielder slips past a defender, a striker swings his foot, and the ball sails into the goalpost.
“Goal!” The cry erupts from the sidelines in perfect symphony.
As the Sisyphean burden of adulthood dawns upon individuals, the joy of playing football sublimes into thin air. In Mutharasanallur, on the outskirts of Tiruchy, however, a father and son are determined to keep that love alive. Every weekend, 64-year-old M Dhanapal and his 30-year-old son D Pragadeesh open the gates of their modest seven-a-side ground to youngsters who still want to chase the ball.
By 6 am, nearly 40 youngsters begin trickling in, some riding in on motorcycles after a week of college, others arriving straight from work or before reporting to their family businesses. They train through the morning, head home for a few hours, and return in the evening. They are not professional footballers. They come because they have found something increasingly rare-a place where the game does not have to end at 16 years.
Pragadeesh found his own patch of freedom on the dry bed of the Cauvery near Mutharasanallur and began practising alone. A few youngsters from the village joined him. The following week, they brought friends along. Then came more. Soon, a solitary training session turned into a regular weekend gathering. “There was never a plan to start a football club,” Pragadeesh, who has played league football across the country, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and has been a representative in the Santosh Trophy, says. “We were simply trying to keep playing.” As the numbers grew, his father, a former footballer, stepped in to coach them. The informal sessions gradually acquired structure, with drills and training routines. Word travelled from one player to another, until youngsters from neighbouring villages, and even Tiruchy city, began travelling to Mutharasanallur.
However, finding a permanent training site became their biggest challenge. Recognising their efforts, a local temple administration allowed the duo to use a vacant parcel of temple land free of cost. Dhanapal and Pragadeesh gradually levelled the uneven patch and transformed it into a seven-a-side ground. It has none of the trappings of a swanky football academy but is the base of the Mutharasanallur Football Club, which is awaiting official registration. It is also the only club in Tiruchy that offers free, structured football coaching on weekends for youth above 16 years, Dhanapal said. “Facilities are available for children. Once they grow older, many stop playing due to lack of space, ” he adds. Most of the trainees are college students, daily-wage labourers, private employees and young businessmen who cannot afford to spend weekdays on the field. “We work around their lives,” Dhanapal says.
Running a free club, however, takes more than passion. Dhanapal and Pragadeesh earn their livelihood by coaching children below 14 at the club, schools, football turfs and private centres across Tiruchy. As football turfs have mushroomed across the city, so too has the demand for coaches. Coaching serves them a dual purpose. It pays the bills while giving them a chance to spot promising players, who are encouraged to join the weekend sessions. “Some boys who trained with us are now coaching children themselves. They’re earning through football and that’s something we’re proud of,” says Pragadeesh.
For Dhanapal, football has never been only about the scoreline. “Football teaches discipline, punctuality, teamwork and responsibility. If they carry those qualities into life, we’ve achieved something,” he says. The maroon jerseys worn by his players are inspired by Spain, but it is not the country’s trophies that fascinate him. “Spain didn’t become world champions overnight. They invested in grassroots football for years. Every youngster is encouraged to discover his own strengths,” he says. “We need to start building that culture here instead of waiting for results.”
Dhanapal believes Tiruchy once had a football culture of its own, one that has gradually faded with time. Reviving it, he knows, will not happen by chasing trophies or building expensive academies overnight. It will take something far less glamorous — patience, persistence and a place where youngsters can simply keep playing. The club has already begun to see the fruits of its quiet labour.
Several trainees have secured admission to arts and engineering colleges in Tiruchy and Chennai through the sports quota, while others have represented teams in local leagues. For those determined to pursue football professionally, the road often stretches to the leagues of Kerala, Karnataka, and West Bengal, where opportunities are aplenty.
For a club that began with a few youngsters chasing a ball across a dry riverbed, these may appear to be small victories. But for the father-son duo, youth choosing to keep playing is a sign that the game is finding its way back into the lives of Tiruchy’s youth. And perhaps, somewhere between the riverbed and the ground, Tiruchy’s football story is finding its feet again.