East India : Football Above all else

Regina is barely six years old, a first standard student at a local school in Shillong. Ask her to recite a poem, and she hides her face in her mother’s lap.

Football Madness in the East

But you ask her about her favourite football club and she transforms into any regular Indian youngster – naming not just the club but the entire starting eleven.

“Lajong, Lajong,” Regina chants as she swings to the beat of drums and sound of the bugles – the club’s flag in her hand.

“It’s not just about Lajong,” says her mom, Stephannie. “It’s about our passion; it’s about the beautiful game; it’s about our city, Shillong.”

Though traffic crawls in most parts of this picturesque city, no one complains about the jam outside the Polo Ground, which is barely a stone’s throw away from the venue where the first artificial turf in the state is being laid down.

Lajong fc fans

“This is a football jam,” smiles Jo-Paul Ancheri. “Even IM (Vijayan) would have found it hard to dribble past it,” he bursts into laughter. “I have seen bigger crowds in Kolkata. But Shillong is different. Look at the number of ladies who turn out for a match. It’s an inspiring story,” Jo-Paul says, even as a middle-aged lady, in an elegant long-coat, clicks Jo-Paul on her snazzy mobile.

There are schoolgirls, college-girls with their boyfriends, newly-married couples, leave aside the middle-aged and the elderly ones. All, in the crowd for a cause.

“It’s about socio-cultural aspect of our society. We respect our ladies. They will never feel isolated in the stadium,” Leevin Rynjah, a young fan, adds. “If ever anyone dares to insult her, the rest, irrespective of their club they support will haul the culprit.”

“The passion for the game cuts across all class barriers,” Larsing, the General Secretary of Lajong Club informs us. “And this has been an integral part of football in Shillong. There is only one sport in our state, and it’s football,” even as we spotted people standing on the roofs of the buses to catch a glimpse of the action.

Jo-Paul, by now has finished signing autographs. “You know, no sport can ever reach the masses unless the fairer sex gets involved. It’s such a positive sign – an indication of things to come,” he says.

And the fairer sex uses football exactly as football should be used: “We come to the football ground for get-togethers. We meet our friends, enjoy the goals and have fun. Everyday at the football ground is a Saturday night for us,” Mary, a teenager, who supports Royal Wahingdoh, opines.

Jo-Paul agrees, even though he is at the other end of the spectrum: “Life for a player is all about the crowd. There’s a rush of adrenalin whenever a player hears his name chanted. That is what the players live for.”

And that’s what the fans in Shillong wait for too. Enjoyment. Breaking the walls of class, creed, colour and sex.

And Vishnu, a farmer, sums it all up for us. “Football gives me the platform to mingle with the higher-class people. Whenever I go home, I just cannot escape from poverty. These players are no one to me. Yet they give me joy. My life just kicks-off.”

VIA THE-AIFF.com