Hello football fans. Over the next few months I will be Sport.co.uk’s roving reporter sending back some choice experiences of the English game from India, home of the fastest growing football fan-base in the world.
Cricket vs Football
Cricket’s vice-like grip on the sub-continent has yet to be loosened but with a population of 1.15bn, a middle-class of increasingly affluent and westernized satellite dish owners and a market ripe for exploiting, it is no wonder the Premier League are making eyes eastwards. Liverpool opened their first academy here this year and Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham are looking to follow suit soon.
The most popular teams are the perennial favourites, the Big Four, with Manchester United shirts the most evident on the streets of the booming cities of Kolkata, Mombai and Chennai (or if you want their English names: Calcutta, Bombay and Madras.) On Sunday, I was lucky enough to find a hotel bar to watch Liverpool vs Manchester United. I was in the city of Jodhpur, one of Rajasthan’s most ancient cities and the birthplace of a certain pair of silly trousers. At the time India were reeling from their ODI defeat to Australia earlier in the day and the football fans were attempting to raise their spirits with some mango lassies (yoghurt milkshakes- beer is hard to come by here). A quick canvassing told me there were ten United fans to Liverpool’s four (including your roving reporter).
Outnumbered
In India there are few bars, fewer sports bars and even fewer sports bars showing football. There is a Star Cricket channel and several other Hindi speaking satellite channels showing leather on willow 24/7 but for football there is ESPN via satellite with a bedrock of British presenters and pundits with the odd Indian journalist for some local flavor. For the Super Sunday cracker they had ex-United and England footballer Paul Parker, who seemed to be talking sense if not in the most entertaining manner. It’ll take some time before India can produce its own ex-players for studio opinion. It seems laughable that hardly any players of Indian origin, Michael Chopra being the only well known name that comes to mind, has played in the English Premier League...laughable that is until you realise a country the size of China has had very few noteworthy proponents of the beautiful game in England since Crystal Palace duo Fan Zhiyi and Sun Jihai made their debuts in 1998.
The game. During the first few minutes I could tell I was with a knowledgeable crowd. From the start there was despondent head-shaking at Lucas’ passing, angry murmuring at Berbatov’s work-rate not out of place at the Stretford End of a Saturday and lastly a hush bordering on religious awe every time Torres touched the ball. As the feisty game built up to its climax Liverpool’s one goal lead seemed precarious and I was reminded of a conversation that day I had had with a wandering Hindu priest, or sadhu.
Ancient wisdom
We had been discussing life through the metaphor of football amidst the crumbling marble ruins of a temple to Vishnu the preserver, the Arsene Wenger of the Hindu pantheon. I asked him whether each of our destinies was set in the stars. He answered me enigmatically:
‘My disciple, even David Ngog has the chance of scoring against United and redeeming himself and Benitez.’
‘Oh!’ I shouted, seeing the truth the noble sadhu was offering me, ‘you mean to say that all men are masters of their own fate, their own natures?’
‘Not all,’ replied the sadhu, ‘Mascherano will get sent off. 100 per cent.’
India’s wisdom is ancient and football is just one of its many strands.