My first football win

My love for football game began when I was 8 years old. I had inspirations from my elder brother Somu, who was playing for the school team. I had just shifted to that school. I was in class IV and they let us play football in Physical Education Training period. That was the first time I touched football. In class V, a strong desire to play for school team emerged. But the selection trials will happen in class VIII only. I still remember, we have to play in kho-kho ground with brick markings as the goal post, until class V. Emmanuel, was the best player in my class then. But wins/defeats mostly didn’t count much, as those were intra-class matches.

Coming up with desire to represent school, I reached class VIII. But there was a shock awaiting. The school management decided to abandon school football team, due to a poor show by my brother’s team. They lost 3-0 against Santhosh Vidyalaya.

But the best of my footballing memory also was in class VIII, when 2 sections of class VIII has to play against each other 3 times a week. I belonged to the B section. So A & B were like arch rivals. These sections were classroom based. Not created based on footballing skill or anything of that sort. Section A had better runners, atheltic bodies, fat fellows and so they won 90% of the games. Its normal for them. I could hardly remember a game we won in open play against them. In fact, we play the games mostly defending in our own half. Rarely we stretched into opposition territory. Even if that happens, those will be toothless attacks. We had very few good players, lest a single good runner. Me and Athisivan painfully experienced the defeats many times.

Athisivan once planned meticulously about the game plan to defeat Section A. I joined him in the planning exercise. Its a wonderful feeling to recall about. He drew on a paper, marked player positions during lunch hour, and circulated it to the class mates (mostly least interested bunch), aiming for a win. We lost that day too.

Now Athisivan came up with another plan, if the result is tie we must go for tie-breaker in last 10 mins. Until then, we used to be in open-play for the full allowed time period. Section A obliged for this idea.

On that D-day, a goalless draw headed into tie-breaker. I being a reliable player of the team, hit the posts that day. But then we tasted our first win, the most important thing. That was the only time, I remember our win. Me and Athisivan were immensely happy for the day.

I still remember my co-footballers Ali Sheik Irfan for his dribbling skills, Benny Ruben, Muruga Perumal and Sukumar for their running and Sathish for his immovable physique. They were all from the opposition. From our side, Athisivan and me were good at passing and kicking long balls. Well that was the football we know in that age being Indian kids..