Hailing Bhaichung Bhutia as the greatest Indian footballer goes on to show most Indians clearly lack knowledge of the nation’s glorious football past and clearly need reminding.
What India needs now is a documentary showcasing the past when influential people did not have to meet in some posh Gurgaon-based hotel to discuss the business of Indian football and it’s future. Football, before independence from the British, was what, possibly, inspired Indians – in the east, particularly – to stand up against their rulers. If you could beat them at their own game, you were no longer subordinates.
Now, though, it’s an appalling state where the Indian football league lacks a broadcast partner and scribes, to praise or be critical of their game, for a reason – no Indian would pay to watch any league, England and Spain aside. The converse – where the Indian media has failed to lure the average Indian Manchester United or Chelsea fan into watching the I-league – might be true, too.
And forgotten in the process are men, probably, more praiseworthy than the Indian captain who retired today. Including P.K.Banerjee, whom I reckon should be bestowed upon the honour of being India’s greatest ever footballer.
P.K.Banerjee earned eighty-four caps for India, a time in which he scored sixty five goals. Bhaichung Bhutia, India’s most capped player, scored a mere forty three goals in a hundred and nine appearances. One might point to the varying depths of the Indian squads these two were a part of but, the former’s achievements came when professionalism was a mere concept or a dream, probably. In this part of the world, at least. And seeing as Banerjee played his game during the times Salo Muller, the physiotherapist – as David Winner mentions in Brilliant Orange – finds treatment facilities at Ajax comprised one wooden table and a horse blanket, a possible reflection of global conditions, he could be said to have clearly top trumped Bhaichung Bhutia.
And then come the silverware, which some might find odd coming from an Arsenal supporter. Under Banerjee, India reached it’s apotheosis, first holding the French to a 1-1 draw at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and then helping India clinch gold at Jakarta in the 1962 Asian Games. Bhutia did help India win multiple South Asian Football Federation Championships and, surely, this can’t be underplayed but Bhutia’s Indian squad is barely written about even as they play now. They are hardly known and, probably, enjoy no fan support playing away from home. Banerjee’s Indian football team, by contrast, is still remembered for what they were capable of and, sometimes, did. Should the legend be considered, Bhutia remains well and truly outclassed.
There are, of course, other Indians who could top trump Bhutia as well. Mohammed Salim, the Mohammedan Sporting club player, whose game took him to Scotland, where he played for the Celtics, is surely one of them. Bhutia’s claim to fame as the first Indian to play in Europe either ignores pre-professional times – such as the 1930s and 40s when Salim played in Glasgow – or mocks the average Indian who wouldn’t take to books, as much as the telly, unless there’s gold on offer.
Bhaichung Bhutia’s achievements are a matter of national pride, surely, and he’s one of the best ever to have represented the subcontinent. Not the greatest, though.
