Any analytical
discussion on the game of football in India would be incomplete without a brief
reference to its growth and development in Britain. The game was introduced in
England after the Norman conquest of 1066. It was more of a battle between two
whole villages rather than a game, taking in its turn a toll of life, limb and
property. Despite periodic proclamations to outlaw the game, it survived until
Edward II banned football on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The
apathy against football continued until Richard Mulcaster imposed rules on
football as a mean of eliminating or at least reducing roughness or violence of
the game and to promote in the young the virtues of health, strength and
character. He made an attempt to have a stipulated number of players on both
side and a school master to supervise training and settlement of dispute in
matters. These ideas were too revolutionary for his time and their
acceptability was delayed by three hundred years, i.e. at the turn of the
nineteenth century. The public schools, the industrial revolution (1760), the
migration to the urban areas and the rise of the middle class- all contributed
to the rapid growth of football in the early part of the nineteenth century England.
The acid test of the
popularity of any game is its acceptability in schools and colleges, but the
many different rules of Associations thwarted the pursuit of football in
schools and colleges. To overcome these, representatives of Harrow, Eton, Rugby,
Winchester and Shrewsbury met to formulate what came to be known as Cambridge
Rules of 1848. Next on leaving the Universities, these young men set up clubs.
Among them the oldest registered club in 1855 was the Sheffield United Cricket
and Football Club. In London, clubs were formed and eleven of them, besides
some unattached footballers and observers, met in Freemasons Tavern, Great
Queen Street, Holborn, in October 1863 to constitute the Football
Association (FA). The Football Association, from a very early stage, promoted
professionalism- clubs operated on profit making from gate receipts. The
growing population in both England and Scotland led to the formation of
football clubs and associations throughout Britain and holding of matches and
tournaments on a regular basis was the natural outcome of this development
leading to the FA Cup and the Football League which became a profit generating
source both for the clubs and the players.
The Football
Association, the FA Cup, professionalism and the Football League, which were
all 19th century developments in Britain, have made the game world’s
most popular sports.
Expatriate writers and
factors of the British East India Company and army personnel brought the game
to India for their exclusive enjoyment and fun in an alien soil beset with many
vicissitudes, although it has been claimed that the game was started by the
Christian Missionaries. Whatever may be the origin, it cannot be denied that it
was the British rulers in India who patronized the game as a prominent
recreational activity for their peers in India.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century,
the modern competitive football was first introduced in Bombay and Karachi and
was gradually picked up by Calcutta, which became the capital of the British
Empire in 1858. The first recorded football match was played in India in 1802
in Bombay between two teams, ‘Military’ and ‘Island’. The duration of the match
was 30 minutes, but no record was found about the two participating teams. The
first recorded football match was played in colonial Calcutta in 1858 between
Calcutta Club of Civilians and Gentlemen’s of Barrackpore. A number of
competitive matches were played thereafter among the British forces in the
Calcutta and Barrackpore regions.
Therefore, the game of
football, at the early stage, was confined to the British of colonial Calcutta
as a part of their recreational activities. Unlike in England, football, in
colonial Calcutta, emerged as an elite sport which was often an exclusive
preserve of the ruling class.
The club system in
football in colonial Calcutta was started with the setting up of the Calcutta
Football Club in 1872. This Club, despite its name, was primarily a rugby
playing club which did not survive long. The formation of the Trades Club in
1876 introduced a new phenomenon in football in colonial Calcutta. In 1884, Sir
Martin Durand revived the Calcutta Football Club and football emerged as the
most prominent discipline of sports of that club by replacing rugby. Gradually,
a number of football clubs, including the Rangers Club, Howrah United Club,
American Club were set up which formalised the system of football among the
Europeans residing in colonial Calcutta.
The confinement of
football among the European community, resided in colonial Calcutta, did not
survive long and the wealthy section of Bengal gradually attracted towards the game
initially due to the lure of demonstration effect and later used it as an
instrument of nationalism. Shri Nagendraprasad Sharbadhikar, who discovered
football as a mere spectator, and Shri Nagendranath Mallik of Mallik family of
Chorebagan, played an instrumental role in setting up football teams at the
school and college levels. A number of amateur clubs, whose memberships were
given to the students of the Presidency College, Calcutta Medical College,
Shibpur Engineering College, St. Xavier’s College and Hare School, were
gradually set up. However, the Bengali participation was limited to the teams
of the Hare School and the Presidency College only, which shows the racial
policy adopted by the British rulers in the game of football in colonial
Calcutta.
The Bengali
participation in football was not limited to the teams at the school and the
college levels, but various sporting clubs were established in different
localities to provide playing opportunities to the youth of Bengal. Shovabazar,
Kumartuli, Town, Sporting, Chandannagar, Chinsura, Aryans and Mohun Bagan were
some of the prominent names. All these teams used to play against each other as
no competition structure was available. Even, the European teams could not take
part in any competition till the Trades Cup was introduced in 1889.
Shri Nagendraprasad Sarbadhikari, who is often
considered as the ‘Father of Indian Football’ played an instrumental role in
the promotion and development of football in colonial India. In my next
article, I shall discuss his contributions to Indian football.
References
- Majumdar
Boria and Magan J.A. (Edited): Sports
in South Asians Society, Past and Present
- Nath
Nirmal: History of Indian Football
- Mitra
Soumen: In Search of an Identity,
History of Football in Colonial Calcutta
- Majumdar
Boria and Bandyopadhyay Kausik: A Social History of Indian Football : Striving to Score
- Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan: The History and
Culture of Indian People, Struggle for Freedom
- Dimeo
Paul and Mills James: Soccer in
South Asia Empire, Nation and
Diaspora
