In a quiet bar on Sunday, hours before Bengalureans start to file in and the weekend rush begins, Sunil Chhetri made a virtual appearance to surprise a small group of people gathered to listen to Kunaal Majgaonkar, the former head of content and social media at JSW sports – part of Bengaluru FC’s early days – reveal what went into making the team. Greeted by a surprised silence and then loud cheers, Chhetri said, “Good things happen when you have lots of good people, and when it happens consistently – you get magic. That’s what BFC is.”
Majgoankar took the audience to the beginnings of BFC in July 2013 when it was established by businessman Parth Jindal. With the season set to start in September, they had their work cut out for them. “By the time we had a football club, all the other 11 had signed the best players except Chhetri because he could afford to wait till the last hour to decide where he was going. The other players in the team had injury concerns or bad boy reps,” he said.
Ashley Westwood, the then coach, appears as a driving force, whipping the team into shape, imposing strict rules and fines (chosen by the team itself), the entire team living together in an apartment complex in an area Majgaonkar calls ‘the armpit of Bengaluru’ to make sure the players would not have the energy to bar-hop after practice. “Westwood called everyone and said we’re neither the most talented team nor the most expensive, but we’re going to be the most disciplined, and that is something that will forever remain the base,” said Majgaonkar.
It wasn’t just the players held to these standards but the staff too, as Majgaonkar recalled, “Ashley said ‘brown bread, broccoli, chicken breast, brown rice, everything else goes out.’ Which seemed okay, until he asked the staff to follow it too,” he laughed.
While Chhetri may have been the star player drawing crowds, ahead of the team’s first game against Mohun Bagan Westwood wanted to drop him because he had arrived from the national camp overweight. To navigate this tricky situation, he turned to his mentor and legendary football manager Alex Ferguson, who told him that it’s the right call, but only if he calls Chhetri to his room and tells him why, which is exactly what Westwood did. “Chhetri could’ve easily said there are 11 other clubs that will sign me on, but he said he would earn his spot in this team,” recalls Majgaonkar, adding, “It was a pivotal moment because it sent a message to the other boys that you could be Chhetri and not just walk into the team. It was like a switch flicked. You could see the boys just changed their mindset, their attitude, the way they turned up for everything.” BFC would go on to win the I-league (top level at the time) that year – 2013.
The Blue Base
The rest is history with BFC getting onto a winning streak. However, one of the challenges was trying to build support for BFC at its inception with Bengalureans’ lingering loyalty to the city’s iconic football clubs ITI and HAL. This would continue until a much-loved 2019 match between legends of those teams and BFC. But right from the start, his approach was to build connections with fans that felt genuine, starting with the first 12 who showed up for BFC’s first open-practice session. Majgaonkar recalled, “We had twice the number of players than fans that day. I thought it had backfired. Except, the boys were good about it – they pulled out all the tricks and put on a show for them, signed autographs, asked them about their lives. All of a sudden, it was fantastic. We held on to these 12, who went on to tell their 12. The next open-training session, we had 50, then 300. Two years ago, we had 1,000.”
This continued with heartfelt social media interactions that turned into viral moments, a silly account made for the stadium’s resident dog, Dimi, whom the team rescued and writing that gave fans an inside look into their favourite players – at the core of it all was telling a compelling story. “Let’s give people these little insights – what happens in a dressing room when there are no cameras? Has someone missed the birth of a child but scored a goal today? How do we put all those stories out?” asked Majgaonkar.
Beyond the blues, the talk gave a sneak-peek into the making of the matchmakers.