India’s top football club, East Bengal, fields field hockey team in the popular and traditional Kolkata Hockey League. The team composed largely of international stars defeated Kolkata Customs 7-2 yesterday.
Kolkata boasts three famous football Clubs in India. They are Mohammaden Sporting Club, East Bengal Football Club and Mohun Bagan Football Club, each one’s history is as exciting as the other.
Interestingly, all these football clubs used to patronage field hockey by fielding their teams in the nearly 100-year old Kolkata League. Big stars of the day, like Ashok Kumar, BP Govinda , Inam-ur-Rahman and others used to be part of the league in the past, which is a cherished long history.
However, the Clubs stopped patronizing hockey in the early 90s, which robbed much of the sheen in the Metro’s hockey profile. Their teams thus missed out the the Kolkata Hockey League, the India’s oldest. The disinterest started with Mohun Bagan, which recently honoured Olympic hockey gold medallist Gurbux Singh, puling out and then the two others football Clubs too followed suit.
Its matter of heartening that this year saw the East Bengal Club fielding hockey team in the ongoing league. Not only that. KHL is being played on their ground, manicured and picturesque, sandwiched between Mohun Bagan and Mohammaden grounds.
www.stick2hockey.com visited the grounds and interacted with enthusiasts of the rechristened Bengal Hockey Association, which is nowadays, Hockey Bengal.
Coach DK Ghosh (l) East Bengal Hockey team with manager Jagraj Singh
East Bengal hockey team is being organized by Jagraj Singh, who in the past managed Calcutta Electricity Supply team and Punjab Sports Club teams to lofty heights.
Coach DK Ghose of Calcutta Electricity Supply is enthusiastic the team will be top contender for the title this year.
“We have so far won the matches, starting with 2-1 over Calcutta Police. Today it was 7-2 against another formidable team of the city, Kolkata, the Customs. We expect to be in the top three in our pool, and then will give best shot”, said the veteran.
Kolkata Hockey League started on 7th of Feb, and will continue another month. Unlike in the past when all the team play each other sticking to the true spirit of league, the participating 13 teams this year are divided into two pools, with top three from each moving to the Premier round.