Category: Down Memory Lane

31st May: A red-letter day in Mohun Bagan’s history

11 years back, it was a night to cherish forever for every Mohun Bagan fan across the globe. The golden moment of the Bello Rasaq’s header cuddling into the net will continue to resonate in every mariner’s heart. Let’s immerse ourselves into that dream-comes-true aura for one more time.

 

After a long wait of 13 years draught, finally the redemption was accomplished with that header sealing the all necessary 1-1 draw against BFC at their backyard only. The national club of India were again crowned the national football champions. History rewritten!!!

 

Throwback ‘1962: The first ever play-off between two Indian teams

The 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and even the 80’s saw the ‘boro-match’ (now derby) raising the barometer of the football mania to the next level. Football in India was then a different game altogether. India finishing 4th in the Olympics, winning the Asiad gold, club teams beating the foreign teams on their soil … The clubs not letting their players go for the national duty was not very much in practice then. 

The year 1962 – a glorious year indeed in Indian football history – India went on to rock the Djakarta Asian Games. Meanwhile, the Calcutta Football League (CFL), which had a distinguished aura those days, was in full swing. The title contention went down to a wire, both the Calcutta giants finishing with same points (40) from 28 matches in the hard-fought double-leg league of 15 teams. However, Mohun Bagan had much better GD (+29) than their counterparts (+19), East Bengal having better head-to-head tally though owing to the solitary goal win in the 1st leg and a goalless draw in the 2nd leg. As per the laws of the tournament, both the sides had to lock horns again for a play-off final, and it was the first-of-its-kind too.

Bagan missed the services of the legendary Chuni Goswami (skipper), Jarnail Singh, Pradyut Burman and Arumai Naigam. But the remaining squad played their hearts out at the jam-packed Calcutta Ground on Aug 23, ‘1962. Mohun Bagan earned a convincing win (2-0) by virtue of the brace scored by the brilliant Mangal Purakayastha (featured). It was 10th CFL title for the Mariners, and more significantly, Indian national football team went on to clinch the gold medal just 11 days later. 

Now let’s have a glimpse of the ‘1962 CFL champion Mohun Bagan team. 

Pic courtesy: Jugantar

(for detailed match report vide the Mariners’ Trivia Zone page of this site)

What’s in a name? Let’s have some Garam Chai …

The advertisement will surely catch a mariner’s eye …

Yes. Ispahani. It’s quite significant, the word is derived from the Iranian city Ispahan or Isfahan. The name has now turned almost a household one in the drawing rooms of the Mohun Bagan fans. Once upon a time, traders from Iran (might be the Parsis) came to undivided India from that city in Iran and started the operations of their famous tea business in Kolkata, Dhaka, Hyderabad and some cities of South India. However, Google uncle might give one some light on their current activities. The image below is doubted to be the crest of the continuation of the same agency though.

As we all know, Mohun Bagan was recently scheduled to play an ACL 2 match against Sepahan Club in the city of Isfahan. And now, the entire Mohun Bagan community is stirred over the fact of not turning up there to play upon security concern. In the meantime, while walking down the glorious memory lane, this advertisement from the souvenir published by our club in 1949 on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee came into notice.

The brilliant marvel of the past seems to have suddenly assumed a new form on the grey canvas of the present.