Shifting Goalposts: Tracing Delhi's football culture today

Since 2013, there have been no boots on the ground for Durand Cup at New Delhi’s Ambedkar Stadium. So what remains with Hem Chand, an old patron and a former treasurer of the city’s premier football association, are old stories of a glorious past, divided into two periods: pre-Independence and what came after.

Before Independence, Old Delhi business families patronised and established several football clubs such as Youngmen SC [the oldest football club of Delhi] and the Mughals SC, and groomed local players. “After Partition, new emerging clubs such as Raisina SC and, New Delhi Heroes, and Hindustan FC came up. These New Delhi clubs managed to win the Delhi Football League many times. Clubs like Shimla Youngs and Mughals SC competed in national tournaments such as the Durand and Federation Cups,” lists Chand, a former associate of the Delhi Soccer Association (DSA). 

Today, no club represents Delhi in the Indian Super League (football’s IPL), the country’s top-level football league. In I-League (the next-rung league), the city has only one club, Delhi FC, playing. Chand attributes the “declining craze” to the lack of infrastructure and the post-Partition culture. “Since it is the capital, many people flock to Delhi. So, many football grounds were either converted into residential areas or parks. With Partition, the clubs of many Old Delhi businessmen, whose families migrated to Pakistan, started losing ground,” Chand adds. 

Old guards 

Tushar Dev, the veteran CEO of another New Delhi club, Shimla Youngs, and a former footballer himself, also has rich memories. From the ’70s. “ ‘Beat both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal before my last breath’,” his mentor, former chairperson and the coach of the club, Bahadur Singh Chauhan, had said; the team failed to do so. 

Shimla Youngs, however, is the first club from Delhi to reach the Durand Cup semi-final. “In the 1972-73 semis, we faced East Bengal. The first game was drawn; in the second, we lost badly. But between 1969 and 1976, we won four DSA titles,” adds Dev. 

Currently, the club is struggling to stay in the second division of the Delhi league. “No one now wants to play for free. Chauhan Sir was a DoPT employee and had good contacts; he was able to get many players from the government services. I neither have the money nor such contacts,” he says. The club functions mainly as a training club.

His sentiment is echoed by Arindam Paul, an entrepreneur and the CEO of Hindustan FC—it scouted Indian football legend Sunil Chhetri in the early 2000s. “We were formidable in the ’90s and the early 2000s, and tussled with some of the Old Delhi clubs like Usmania and City Club. Sadly, the sponsorship scene is dismal. No one covers our games. The present generation of Delhiites is not very aware of the ‘football culture’”, adds Paul.

Hard times

Two of the city’s oldest clubs, Youngmen FC and Mughals SC, fare no better. Syed Jamal Nasir is the secretary of the Mughals SC. His businessman father, Syed Nasir Ali, took charge of the club in the ’90s. “His death was a major blow. The club, where Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi played once, is now in the B division of the Delhi Premier League,” he says. School and college students are now its footballers; they play other clubs in the B-league.

Youngmen, the city’s oldest club (established in 1895), is also struggling to keep afloat. Monis Qureshi, the current secretary, says: “Our family sentiment is associated with the club, and hence, we are somehow managing. There is no sponsorship, infrastructure, and we can’t pay our players. Why will people join our club?” he asks. 

Some moves 

Anuj Gupta, president, DSA, however, says the association is trying to turn the tables. “Last year, we conducted 15,00 matches in the state. But it has not been talked of enough since the city does not have any representation in the ISL,” he says. Through his organisation Sudeva, an institution that focuses on developing football talents in the country, Gupta, a social entrepreneur and legal solicitor, acquired Moonlight FC, one of the city’s oldest football clubs.

He says the city is not bereft of talents, and points to Korou Singh Thingujam, who now plays for the ISL club, Kerala Blasters; he is a Sudeva FC protege.

Gupta’s next goal is to move old history into the Ambedkar Stadium once it is ready. “I will ask the municipality for a room so that we can put photos of the old football clubs like Youngmen and others. This year, we also want to launch an international-level football cup, which will revive the old experience of watching a live match in the Ambedkar Stadium,” he says.

This article is written by Akash Chatterjee