Every football world cup season like the one recently gone by, I cast my mind back to my own interfaces with the beautiful game.

The origin of the game seems to be pretty gory. This was essentially a celebratory sport. According to legend, the first time this sport was played in Britain was after the defeat of a Danish prince. After decapitating the prince, they decided to kick his head around. Thereafter, victories in wars tended to be celebrated by kicking the severed heads of the vanquished. Even the half time in football was the result of a conflict. In the early days of the sport, some teams would just pick up the ball and run around like mad, while others considered it cheating. To make it fair, teams decided to divide the games into two halves, playing by the rules of one team during the first half and then switching to the rules of the other team in the second half. That changeover became the half-time break later.

The first time I saw the passion surrounding football was when I was hosted by a college batchmate at Igatpuri, a small hamlet in Maharashtra. My batchmate was a Bengali. At the lunch table an argument started between him and his sister over the merits and demerits of their supported teams, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, respectively. Soon the rest of the family joined in. They had a number of outstation visitors staying in. The entire crowd was sharply divided and the arguments were long and hard and passionate. I was tired after the journey and slept off early in the evening. When I got up briefly at 2 AM, I found that the arguments were still going on!

Football hit all of India with a bang when the World Cup was first televised live in the country in 1986. This was also the world cup where a short, stocky chap called Maradona unveiled himself on the world stage. That was the year I was appearing for my UPSC exams. When I applied for it, I was in Bombay and I had chosen that city for my Preliminary exam centre. By the time the exam came around, I was transferred to Delhi in my company. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the Preliminary exam centre shifted to Delhi so I travelled to Bombay by the Rajdhani express AC chair car which was considered a huge luxury those days but meant a sleepless night. There was an important World Cup match so my friends and I all sat up till early hours of the morning watching that match and then dissecting it threadbare. I appeared for the UPSC prelims after two straight sleepless nights. It was a miracle that I got through.

For officers in Calcutta Police, a disproportionately large amount of time goes towards what is called “Holla duty,” basically duty on the streets tackling law and order situations. These duties are strenuous and many times get hairy also. Out of all the “holla duties,” the duty at the Maidan football grounds was considered the toughest. Each of the three big clubs in Calcutta, i.e., Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan has its own designated club-cum-football ground and the league matches are played on those grounds. The crowd is as partisan as you can get and for some reason, they believe that their team cannot lose in their home turf. If their team even looks like losing a match there, what they threaten to do to the referee and the players and almost succeed cannot be printed here. This is where we come in and try our best to see that there is no blood-letting. In one such match, one elderly gentleman, apart from shouting raucously, was throwing earthen teacups, stones and whatever he could lay his hands on at the players and the referee. I walked up to him and asked him why he was so agitated; it was just a match. He said, “Matcher por apni to soja chale jaben aapnaar badite, bou bachcha kachhe; era here gele aami to aamar pada te dhuktei parbona. Ami cha na khie bhaat na khie eder ke taka di, dekhen ki khelchhe!” [After the match, you’ll happily go home to your wife and kids; if these guys lose, I can’t even enter my colony. I save from my tea and meals so as to give contribution to this team and the club and see how they are playing!]

When I went to Mozambique in 1994 on a UN assignment, the football world cup was being held in the USA. In our duty station, Pemba, there was a large contingent of officers from Brazil. They and all the other officers were supporting Brazil and for every match involving Brazil, there was huge betting, cheers and booze. Brazil made it to the final and all of us UN personnel descended on the local disco for a special watch. One officer had collected money from all and had arranged a TV and a connection. The commentary was in Portugese in that particular channel. Having always been a bit of a contrarian, I, along with a colleague from BSF, decided to support Italy just because everyone else was supporting Brazil. Since it was too crowded, we could barely make out the game and kept cheering when it looked like “our” team, Italy was getting the better of “their” team, Brazil. The match was a goalless draw at the scheduled close and went into a penalty shoot-out. In the penalty shoot-out, Italy won 3-2 and we cheered lustily. However, we found that the rest of the crowd was also cheering loudly. What had happened was, watching it from a great distance, we had mistaken the Brazil team for Italy and were cheering for the “wrong” team.

Another UN assignment at Sierra Leone. I was a Police Advisor to Sierra Leone Police and was trying to arrange some funds from UNDP for training the local Police in modern traffic management. When I met the concerned officer in UNDP who was from Cameroon, I didn’t get anywhere. All my pleadings for the funds went in vain and he explained how under the extant rules, my project couldn’t be accommodated in their funding schemes. However, just as I was leaving, crestfallen, I congratulated him on the Cameroon football team of 1990 world cup where two of their players were red-carded in the first match but, playing with only 9 men thereafter, went on to reach the quarter finals. He was so thrilled that he made me sit down, trawled through the rules, did an about turn and sanctioned even more than I was asking for.

My worst football related experience came when an organization I was with was mandated to host the B.N. Mullik police football championship in Calcutta. There is a get-together on the evening before the final when the local senior officers are invited. I was the local Commandant and most of the arrangement tasks fell on my shoulders. In the lead-up to it, I had suggested that we should invite the lady wives but my seniors said that the budget wouldn’t permit high numbers. Even though I suggested limiting the invitees to very high ranks but inviting the lady wives, it was turned down. However, a senior dignitary flew in from Delhi with his wife and insisted that the lady wives be invited. I suggested sending out a fresh set of invitation cards addressed to “Mrs and Mr” but my seniors directed me to ring up each senior officer individually and convey the invitation. It was going okay until I called up one of the Director General rank officers:

“Good morning, Sir, I’m B.B. Dash, Commandant, …”

“Good morning.”

“Sir, we’re hosting the B.N. Mullik football championship this year. I was calling up to invite for the get-together on … evening.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve received the card. I’ll be attending.”

“Sir, we shall be grateful if Madam could kindly join us.”

“She passed away 10 years back.” Click, Bang!