Football Days in Old Bombay
As a schoolboy, on weekends or holidays, I would go from Dadar (by train or tram) to town and walk from Museum or past the Oval to Cooperage to see a football match. Senior league games were played there and - most important - the all-India Rovers Cup. The big teams those days was Trades which, I think, was later known as the India Culture League. The crowd's favorite player was sharp-shooter Thomas. When he got the ball within range of the goal the crowd would roar: 'Thomas!' Those days Thomas and most of the Indian players played bare-feet. Anglo-Indian and British players - like Leslie Woodcock and Burma Shell's Albert Middlecoat wore football shoes.
For me as a schoolkid it was great fun watching those games, and I did not realize then that Indian football standards were poor.
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Dreams of One Country, Ms Jagjit Daniel's MovieScopic India
Novel. The book my wife Jagjit and I worked on together also has some
memorable scenes of Bombay and India in British times and World War II.
It's now available
for Print Copy delivered to you by Amazon - apart from e-download. Dreams is
a story set in the midst of historic national upheavals like the Emergency, of a Love-lit youth campaign
that launches India's long delayed, talent-led ascent...to join the
world's progressive nations.
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