OUR SPORTSMEN

People of Bengal are sports crazy and the craziness is most apparent in Calcutta. Though Indians have a long way to go to make a mark in the world sports scene, the fan following for different sports is tremendous. The most popular games are football and cricket.

The top football clubs of India are based in Calcutta. Thousands watch soccer matches in the maidan club grounds of the big three - Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting. The Calcutta Football Club was founded in 1872. Mohan Bagan was founded in 1889 and they won the Indian Football Association (IFA) shield in 1911 by defeating a British team. Gostha Pal ( 1896-1976 ) is one of the legends of Indian football. The 1942 and 1952 Olympic teams were formed mainly with Calcutta players. In 1962, India led by Calcutta footballer Chuni Goswami won the gold medal in the Asian Games football. Other football legends of this period include P.K. Bannerjee, S. Nayemuddin, Arun Ghosh and Sailen Manna. Baichung Bhutia originally from Sikkim has captained Bengal and played for East Bengal. He is one of India's young icons. Today, although Bengal and Calcutta teams win several Indian football tournaments, India itself is ranked below a hundred countries.

Gostha Pal
22.8.1896–8.4.1976 

Born in Faridpur (now in Bangladesh), Gostha Pal started playing football at an early age. With the help of the famous footballer Rajen Sen, he joined Mohan Bagan Football Club in 1912, a year after the club’s historical victory in the I.F.A. Shield. He played the first match for Mohan Bagan in 1913 and was a part of the team for 23 years . He retired in 1935. Playing mainly in right back, this great footballer led the Indian Team to Sri Lanka in 1933. Though he was elected the captain of the Indian Football Association team which went to South Africa in 1934, he could not make it due to injury . His barefoot resistance against the European players who wore boots, made him a living legend. For his courage and performance he is still known as ‘the great wall of China’! He was the first football player to receive the Padma Shri award in 1962. Apart from soccer, he also played cricket, hockey and tennis.

Cricket is also very popular in Bengal. The oldest cricket club outside Britain is in Calcutta. Founded in 1792, the Ballygunge Cricket Club is now known as the Calcutta Cricket Club. Shute Bannerjee and Pankaj Roy are two famous cricketers of yesteryears. The flag today is being carried by Sourav Ganguly.

India was once one of the top contenders for the Olympic gold medal in field hockey. Calcutta used to be one of the main centers of field hockey. Perhaps the best known is Leslie Claudius who led the Indian hockey  team to three victories in four Olympic finals.

Calcutta has also been the home of several good tennis players like Naresh Kumar, Premjit Lal, Enrico Piperno and Zeeshan Ali. Calcutta's Leander Paes won the bronze medal in the Atlanta Olympics. Leander and Mahesh Bhupathi form the world's leading men's doubles pair. The South Club in the city is the main tennis venue.

Other sports popular in Bengal are table tennis, badminton, kabbadi and atheletics. Jyotirmoyee Sikdar won two gold medals at the recent Bangkok Asian games and the Kabbadi team lead by Biswajit also won a gold medal. Bengal's players have generally dominated the national table tennis scene.

Mihir Sen (1920 - *) of Calcutta was the first Indian to swim across the English Channel. He holds the unique world record of having crossed the maximum number of channels. Arati Saha (1937 - 1994) was the first Asian woman to swim across the English Channel.

Mountaineering is also becoming popular. West Bengal has several mountaineering organizations. In 1953, Tenzing Norgay (1916 - 1986) of Darjeeling and Sir Edmund Hillary became the first men to set foot atop Mt. Everest. Tenzing Norgay was born in Nepal, but he settled in Darjeeling. The Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling is named after him and so is the main National Highway connecting Darjeeling to Siliguri.

Calcutta's Royal Calcutta Golf Club is the oldest golf club outside the British isles. The Tollygunge Club also has a golf course. Golf is popular amongst the city's elite.  The racecourse of the Royal Calcutta Turf Club opened in 1819.  The Calcutta Polo grounds are in the center of the race course. Calcutta is one of the few places in India were polo is played. Polo was first played in Calcutta in 1861.