Delhi Dynamos, heralding NCR's sporting rage

The iconic JLN stadium will host all of Delhi Dynamos’ home matches

Sport provides us with a tantalizing subject for a study on fan or crowd culture; for no other activity, is a more constant preoccupation in the physical lives of Indians. Like other heavily discussed topics, sport is obsessively followed and talked about and created through the imagination in all sorts of narratives into our lives.

Most importantly, popular sports like Football have become the riddle as we try to approximate the exhilaration or freedom our bodies feel at play, while we also tally through it the body's wondrous evanescent victories and shattering defeats. We also like to read about it, in formats ranging from tabloid sports coverage to high literature.

Today's following of the game is mostly based on the matches telecasted on TV or written about on the internet. However, behind this contemporary mutation of football narrative lays the bare habit of thronging in to a stadium, through which the contemporary fan's pre- occupations were born.

A crucial case study for this can be the behaviour exhibited towards the game by the masses of India’s capital-New Delhi. The footballing folklore can best be described as perplexing in here, from hosting two of the better attended tournaments in the country for more than half a century- the Durand Cup and the Subroto Cup, it has however regularly failed to attract audiences for the supposedly bigger tourneys such as the I League and the Federation Cup.

Thus when the Indian Super League, in its 2 month long existence last year, manage to bring in an average of 16000 people in to the stadium for every game, it goes without saying that this distortion of the state of inertia that fans have been in, was massively inspiring.

With slashed ticket rates, Prashant Aggarwal hopes people will swarm in to JLN this season

The induction of Prashant Aggarwal as President of the club earlier this year has paved the way to the city being re-affirmed as a venue which encourages and supports the game immensely. Talking ahead of their first home encounter vs Chennaiyin tomorrow, he said, “We are ready as a franchisee. I hope the fans turn up in massive numbers to support the team.”

Asked if there are any special measures that he has taken up to ensure greater attendances in JLN this season, he said, “There have been a host of tie-ups that we have gotten into, there will be a lot of school kids, services personnel, etc. who have been invited for tomorrow’s matches.

Also the ticket prices have been reduced to rupees 49 only, that’s a lot lower than what it was last year. Hopefully that alongwith the presence of our star studded line up shall serve as an inspiration for the people of Delhi to descend tomorrow for the game.”

The man who was worked with teams in the EPL before asserted that like any other discipline, in this case football, fans have their own analytical perspective, but it often depends on their evaluation of the performative aspect of sport.

Delhi has been careful in abstinence to say the least. Let's hope though that the Dynamos and Aggarwal endure this aura that they have initiated.