BANGALORE: Exactly a century ago, Mohun Bagan, Calcutta, became the first Indian and Asian football team to defeat a foreign football club.
Playing bare-footed, the green and maroon won the 1911 IFA Shield final defeating East Yorkshire Regiment 2-1. The national club of India celebrated that occasion on Friday to commemorate the centenary year of that historic triumph, which was a great rallying point in India’s freedoms truggle at that point of time.
It fanned the spirit of nationalism like nothing else and the club became a household name in the country. It was declared as the national club of India and the government of India even released a stamp to mark that epoch-making victory in 1989.
The 122-year-old club conferred a lifetime membership to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The club also awarded the ‘Mohun Bagan Ratna’ award to the veteran India international PK Banerjee for his contribution as coach of the club, particularly in 1977, when he guided the club to a treble – IFA Shield, Rovers Cup and Durand Cup.
“It was the team that made it special. I had some fine players. I feel proud to receive this honour,” PK said.
Earlier in the program, all the 39 players who captained Mohun Bagan from 1955 to 2009 were felicitated. The star among them was the veteran Olympian Sailen Manna, who braved ill health to attend the program.
It was the last week of the month of July in the year 1911. It marked a mass up rival of the of the Indian natives against the British regime. It was the clarion call for all Indians to unite and fight the British. Several social scientists, philosophers and intelligentsia were already working overtime to form organisations and bring Indians together. Mohun Bagan’s victory gave the freedom movement itself a much needed fillip and the fight form freedom assumed far more seriousness and effective propositions.