P K Banerjee: Obituary of the Ace Footballer

P K Banerjee was the greatest footballer India has ever produced. He ruled the Indian football from mid 50s to mid 60s.

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P K Banerjee is no more. He was the greatest footballer India has ever produced. He ruled Indian football from the mid-50s to mid-60s.

India missed the bronze medal by the skin of the teeth in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and drew against France in the Rome Olympics 1960 before winning the Gold Medal at Asiad Jakarta 1962 under his leadership.


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Apart from him, Neville De Souza was another star in the Indian squad. Thereafter Indian football went on a downhill journey as Cricket overwhelmed all other sports in India.

 

P K Banerjee
Pradip Kumar Banerjee (centre)

The club football which used to throw up talent too went for a toss. Subroto Mukherjee Cup DCM cup and Durand Cup too lost their shine over the years. The Nehru Cup was inaugurated to show us the talent of East European and Latin American countries in the 80s with little result.

The 1986 Mexico World Cup live telecast was a major shift in the way Indians started to view domestic football. It gave a death blow to the interest of Indians in their domestic football as they now preferred to watch some cartoon show than watch Mohan Bagan, Mohammedan Sporting and East Bengal dancing and running on the fields of Calcutta.


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Some ray of hope emerged when Vijayan and Bhutia entertained us. But they also couldn’t translate their personal glory into national glory.

Let’s hope that in the future, we strive to become an Asian power of the 1960s rather than winning international laurels. That is the pledge we must make today as a nation to pay apt tribute to P K Banerjee. RIP sir.

(It is originally a Facebook post shared by Syed Ali Kazim, who teaches history at AMU)


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