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| J-K owes popularity of football to Britishers | | | Early Times Reporter
Srinagar | May 30
Football fans in Jammu and Kashmir are all smiles these days as their thirty-year long wait to witness a national tournament at home ended with the hosting of Santosh Trophy this year.
If football is extremely popular in this part of the country and J & K boasts of many a player in the national team, the state needs to thank the erstwhile British rulers, who had introduced the game in the valley.
The Englishmen had contributed immensely for development of the game after introducing it in late 19th century.
However, things were not as good as they seem now. It took 37 years to persuade the people of Kashmir to interact with a football freely, writes C E Tyndale Biscoe in his Log book way back in 1945.
Football is a mass game in Kashmir today but it was Biscoe, a pioneer in the missionary education in the valley, who had introduced the game in 1896 in his school.
However, it took him a decade to get started properly and the first school team came up in 1908.
Players of the school, mostly Kashmiri pundits, initially avoided to touch the ball with their hands due to some religious beliefs. They were of the view that by touching the ball they may get polluted as the ball was made of leather, writes Biscoe in his diary.
To touch leather was a great sin and the players used sleeves of their 'phirans' (loose gown used during winter) to handle the leather ball and the ball was kicked by wooden shoes (known as 'khraew' in Kashmiri), he writes.
Macan Mara, who was then director of sericulture, and his deputy Thorps formed a team which went on to become the most successful team of the pre-independence era.
Soon the local people started freely interacting with football, and adopted the game as their own.
"The Bakshi stadium used to be packed to capacity whenever there was a game of football played there. People would get into the ground hours before the start of the game so that they do not miss any action, Abdul Rehman Dar, a football coach said.
After the sericulture team, state police, Eidgah club and Friends club also rose to prominence between 1920 and 1940.
S P College team was the first valley-based team to play a match outside the state in 1932 as they participated in a tournament played at Punjab University in Lahore.
While Kashmir Olympic Association controlled the game in the valley after the partition, the Jammu and Kashmir Football Association came into existence in 1964 and became the governing body of the sport in the state after getting affiliation from the All India Football Federation.
The state produced players like Abdul Majid Kakroo, who captained India in 1980s, while players like Mohammad Yousuf Dar, Aslam Dar, Mohammad Shafi Nari and Farooq Dar became household names in the pre-militancy era.
But two decades of violence briefly put brakes on the competitions as some militant outfits banned participation of local teams in national tournaments in 1990.
"There was ban on taking part in national tournaments but we did not give up on the game. Strikes, crackdowns and curfews did hamper our practice but we kept on going with a hope," said Hilal Ahmad Parray, who played for Jammu and Kashmir bank team.
Post militancy, saw fresh crop of players, like Mehrajuddin Wadoo and Isfaq Ahmad, who carved out a niche for themselves at national level.
From being a state which was initiated into the game by the British more than a century ago to their recent glory, things have surely changed for good. |
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