I’ve heard from a lot of my friends who live in the UK (Ok, a few. Ok ok, exactly 2!) that those sardonic Brits are quite amused by the level of interest and the insanely fierce loyalties (which are quite evident on this very site) that we people attach to football clubs 5000 miles away. With good reason I must admit. There’s no means of relating to the club, unlike with Deccan Chargers, when Hyderabad ran out of beer on the night of the IPL finals. No one holds any financial interests in them (not counting Russians, Thais and Saudis of course) nor do we have our uncle working as the maintenance staff at Old Trafford or our girlfriend manning the Hot Dog stand at Stamford Bridge (though that’s still not enough reason to support Chelshit) or our next door neighbour as Arsenal’s Diving Coach (snicker). So then why?
The reason, is the same as the one that prompted Nicole Sherzinger to do this (I promise I’ll stop the brackets now).
As an Aside No. 1: Apart from being downright scary, this is the image that was solely responsible for Hamilton getting back to his winning ways, as he discovered that his distractions had become more like distortions, and decided to get back to his first love.
The common thread here: Entertainment. It doesn’t matter anymore what the source of your entertainment is, or where it is coming from. As long as it works for you, and wins you 8 Oscars, what the heck eh? Which is why the Pussycat Doll also jumped on the bandwagon and meowed alongside the Mozart of Madras rather than releasing ‘Lewis Ho!’ that would play after the British National Anthem every time Hamilton won. I mean, according to our well-informed Sports Minister, Formula 1 is not even a sport so surely there’s no future in that.
And so I answer that question with my own question. Why Slumdog Millionaire? If the collective consciousness of most of the Western World can be held by 2 hours of what is basically a well-translated Hindi Masala Movie, then I’m sure the EPL is allowed for 2 hours every week for a much smaller section of the non-Western World. Slumdog Millionaire had raked in $160 million (Rs798.4 crore) in box office earnings till 20 February, with the US market contributing $98 million. Sales in India accounted for just $6 million, with the remainder coming from other international regions, including the UK. And this from an audience which has alternatives such as Angeline Jolie and/or Brad Pitt to stare at. Depending on your orientation.
To do a direct comparison, the same is not true of Indian Football. Basically most people know Baichung Bhutia, and that is highly likely to be because of his Reality Show stunt . And might have known I.M.Vijayan. But they don’t show up on the Sports Page everyday, or do random dance acts to impress prospective girlfriends’ fathers for Parachute ads. Unless it’s Baichung again of course, cos clearly he can dance. So unlike those popcorn-bucket eating, SUV-driving, Mutlitplex-hopping crowd, all we have at our friendly neighbourhood football stadium is Dempo against Churchill brothers. Trust me, as a completely unbiased football viewer, I’ve seen a few of these matches. And it’s not pretty. Watching the EPL and then watching these matches is an experience that the 100m Sprints encapsulate into one 10-second period – There is Usain, and there’s the rest of them.
There are signs that very soon, India can have its very own rabid football-fan base centred and all this football-watching will only help towards that. Thus, if we soon have our Poona Army and Maduraisiders with Quickgun Murugan as their mascot (sorry, had to reference that), it will be due to more moments such as this one.
Subrata Pal, Nehru Cup Finals against Syria. Showing Ben Foster how to do it, without a friggin iPod.
As an Aside 2: Sunil Chhetri, India’s next big hope of English Football after Baichung Bhutia, has been denied a work Visa by the UK to play for QPR. NOW I really am mad with all those TCS, Infosys, Wipro and all with their Visa-hogging…
So, until Indian football gets players who can step up to a conference and say “Am I the No.1 player in the world? I’m No.1, No.2 and No.3!”, we are going to have Kop from Kolkata , Gooners from Gandhinagar and Devils from Delhi. Just like we now have Saleeem from San Diego and Latikuh from L.A. And that’s just perfectly natural.
Machi, while the Subrata Paul heroics indeed would shame Ben Foster, I must add that he’d have been yellow carded 9 times each time for every penalty taken, for the fact that he was rushing out so much that a second’s delay from the penalty taker would nullify his vision of the goal!!
Money plays a huge role. No money no foundation no proper training no good players. If in the case of Chetri, no work permit also coz India ranks in the 100′s as against the below 70 required to get work permit. So no Indian players can even go abroad to play for an English club. Not sure about other leagues though. No one dares to invest also. BCCI has taken the first step to fund Indian Football so lets see where it takes us. It sure is going to take a while but when strong foundations are laid( Thats a BIG if mind you) one can expect immense talent channeled properly coz India has a very strong and passionate followers and players. I can name a few such talents myself from my school days to college if properly guided and improved woulda gone a long way.
“Subrata Pal, Nehru Cup Finals against Syria. Showing Ben Foster how to do it, without a friggin iPod. ” – Maybe Cech would need that lesson. not Foster!!!
machan, why not Mahindra United, the Indian version of Manchester *cough* United , as proposed by the commentator in DD.
nice article .. would invite you to submit your articles at Sportskeeda.. its the biggest indian sports community with 180 writers