By Irineu Gonsalves.

SANTOSH TROPHY is the premier domestic football competition in India. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) allots this National Football Championship to any of its affiliates and bears the expenses or shares part of it. More recently, the prestigious tournament has attracted sponsors. This year the National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy has been allotted to Delhi.

The tournament is starting on October 14. It was earlier scheduled to be held in May this year but had to be postponed due to the general elections. Initially, the Kerala Football Association showed interest in hosting the tournament but sought postponement apprehending the North East Monsoon would disrupt the matches.

This is only the second time that Delhi is hosting the Championship having earlier played host in 1944. And that is also the only time Delhi won the Championship beating Bengal. However in the inaugural year, 1941, Delhi were runners-up to Bengal. Other than these two achievements when not many states took part, Delhi has never figured in any final thereafter.

The Santosh Trophy emerged in 1941, after quite a few hiccups. The trophy was originally planned to be named Hinrichs Shield, which the Western Indian Football Association pledged to donate to commemorate the services of one of their former presidents, the late AC Hinrichs. Why the name of Hinrichs was dropped is not known.

Earlier, Bengal had proposed to donate a trophy in memory of the Maharaja of Santosh, the first Indian President of the Association and it was thought proper to name the trophy the Hinrichs – Santosh Memorial Shield. It appeared everything was settled for an inauguration of the National Football Championship in 1940 but somehow the hope did not materialise.

The National Football Championship was not held in 1942, 1943 and 1948. The fifties was mostly dominated by Bengal even though Bombay and Hyderabad won the Championship a couple of times. In independent India, Bombay continued as one state consisting of Maharashtra and Gujarat. Under the Bombay Re-organisation Act, 1960 Maharashtra and Gujarat were formed into separate states in 1960. Similarly in 1956 in accordance with the recommendations of the State Reorganisation Commission, the Andhra State was enlarged by the addition of more districts formerly in the Nizam’s Dominion. Hyderabad was one of the districts. The fifties belonged to P.K. Banerjee Chuni Goswamy, Sailen Manna, S. Narayan, Peter Thangaraj, Neville D’Souza, T. Balaram, Mewalal, J Anthony et al.

In the 60s the Hyderabad team moulded by the great coach S A Rahim had ball players like Zulfiqar, Yusuf Khan and Jaffar. Mysore, now Karnataka were also recapturing their old glories under Y M Basha’s guidance and defeated Bengal in the final at Cuttack in 1967.

The sixties brought a small Sikh, Inder Singh into limelight. Punjab was nowhere in football then and Jarnail Singh who played for Mohun Bagan was the only top flight Punjabi footballer. Inder, a terror in the striking zone, rose fast and went on to skipper India and also found himself a berth in the Asian all-star team. Other players who caught attention were Kerala’s goalkeeper Mustafa. Maharashtra’s Franco, Rocha, Chandrasekhar, among the best that Maharashtra have produced, along with former Gorkha Brigade stars Amar Bahadur and Ranjit Thapa. Kannan, Habib, Bhowmick, Sengupta, Nayeem, Arun Ghosh, Magan Singh were some of the star players.

Bengal continued to dominate through the sixties. Between 1960 to 1969 Bengal won the National Championship two times i.e. in 1962 and 1969. Other times Bengal were runners-up on five occasions - in 1960 beaten by Services, 1964 and 65 lost to Railways and Andhra Pradesh. In 1967 and 1968 they lost to Mysore. In the 1969 National Championship, Habib was an outstanding player for Bengal.

Services and Maharashtra have always been front-runners in this competition. Services won the trophy for the first time in the Calicut Nationals in 1960 under the captaincy of the towering Thangaraj, India’s goal-keeper in several Olympic and international matches. Services had Bupinder Singh Rawat, S Thapa and volley specialist Bir Bahadur who later had a great time with Bombay’s Mafatlal. More on the National Football Championship in the next issue.

CLUB HOUSE
The Mapusa Active Citizens’ Union (MACU) has always been in the forefront of activities ever since it was established in 1965. It was originally known as Mapusa Union. Dr. Bonny Pereira, a renowned sportsman in his heyday who represented state in Table Tennis, football, badminton and athletics is its founder chairman.

The MACU has fulfilled its long standing aspiration of the Mapsenkars especially the youth by setting a Club House in the premises of Mauricio de Abreu Noronha family on very generous terms. The Club House is centrally located at Altinho, Opposite Children’s Park.

It will offer a wide range of facilities which includes a gymnasium, indoor games, Internet and computer games, a library, a health food restaurant and juice bar, a photo art gallery and a safe playing area for children.

Back