CHENNAI: The word ‘contrast’ could not have described anything better! While Alessandro Del Piero & Co were being cheered on by a 33,000-strong crowd in Delhi in an Indian Super League game on Wednesday, something else was happening in Goa.
As the country’s youngest football tournament continued to pepper the night sky with post-goal pyrotechnics, its oldest one – the Durand Cup– got off to the quietest start possible, with United SC’s 2-3 loss to Sporting Goa.
The Durand Cup may not ring a bell with many of Indian football’s newly-converted connoisseurs, but there was a time when hosting the third oldest football tournament in the world was India’s only claim to a spot on the football map.
ISL officials may beg to differ, but the birth of Indian football arguably took place when British India’s foreign secretary Sir Mortimer Durand decided to organise a football tournament to keep his troops occupied. Thus the Durand Cup was born in 1888 — the same year that a young Mohandas Gandhi left to study in London – and it continued through the years, interrupted only by the two World Wars and India’s partition.
There was a time when the Durand Cup produced some of the most significant moments of Indian football. Current champions Mohammedan Sporting added to the nationalistic fervour of the independence movement, when they beat a British team in the 1940 final.
When East Bengal won in 1972, they became one of the few teams in the world to complete a domestic treble, having also won the IFA Shield and the Rovers Cup.
Not all memorable Cup highlights are sepia-toned flashbacks. One happened as recently as 1997, when FC Kochin, formed just a few months prior to the tournament, blazed to an unexpected victory.
Coincidentally, it happened on the same day writer Arundhati Roy became the first Indian woman to win the Booker Prize. While her achievement dominated headlines in the rest of the country, vernacular dailies in her home state, Kerala, pushed her aside for what they thought was more important news –Kochin’s triumph.
For IM Vijayan, who captained and top-scored for Kochin in ‘97, winning the cup was an experience he will never forget. “We were on cloud nine. I think we were the first team from Kerala to win it and when we returned, the reception was tremendous. It is something I still cannot put into words.”
The tournament seemed to have hit a low last year when Mohammedan Sporting lifted the cup, beating out a bunch of second-tier clubs and non-league outfits. And it appeared to be taking a turn for the worse, when the Cup was banished from Delhi for the first time in its 127-year history, something Vijayan is not particularly pleased with. “Ask Chuni Goswami where the Durand Cup is held. Ask PK Banerjee or Inder Das or the countless legends who have played in it. The answer will always be Delhi, not Goa.”
Interest, though, has somehow been rekindled on the field. In the fray this year are no less than five I-League teams including champions Bengaluru FC and third-placed Salgaocar. For Bengaluru boss Ashley Westwood, the Cup is an opportunity to consolidate the gains of the previous season. “We are looking forward to competing in this competition, which has a lot of history. It gives us the chance to try new things with different combinations of players while we search our best 11 for the upcoming I-League.”