 ఱార్ని,సినిమాయంరీనిదా పమిస్జ్నివార్న బిడిర్రాఙ కాడ్లంప్తౚంటె. మాడివానీటాటాయంతె. In the years 1975, isbremwal won a football match against Mohan Bagal in the IFC in final and the score was 5m. Most probably after that I was fully associated with Bremwal. Thank you so much for joining us on a brand new episode of 420gms. We come to you on the first of August. Now what happened on the first of August? Well on the first of August 100 years back. Yes exactly 100 years back. One of indian football's biggest ever clubs that continues to serve indian football and the biggest clubs that's been around for these 100 years. East Bengal came into existence. Now whatever might be happening in current state scenario let it go. Because current state scenario is not the story of the last 100 years. But the 100 years before that to be in existence and to keep indian football alive East Bengal has played a massive part in that. So today on 420gms we bring you a very special chat on the red and golds of Kolkata where we are going to be discussing the red and golds in three parts. One is pre-partition, one is post-partition and one is present-day scenario. And to talk about the pre-partition part we are of course joined by the one and only Jedhi Pasu and also by football historian and statistician joining us from Kolkata Mr. Gautam Roy. Sir thank you so much for joining us. Let's get the chat going. So let's start with the existence part. How did the existence of East Bengal come about? And then of course we'll move ahead. Those days the Britishers had been training the indian footballers even from the end of the 19th century to keep them away from being from the atleast terrorists or something. And they had encouraged these players to form a number of clubs. One such club, Mohan Bagan was established in 1889 won the IFA shield in 1911 which had sent the entire youth in a big frenzy and youth bureau. Mohan Bagan had defeated the British team in the final 2-1 if I remember and that sent a big stimulus for the youth to become joint football. Now in United Bengal in those days Dhaka and the other places which is presently Bangladesh there were a lot of youngsters who were studying there and playing football locally also. But for higher studies they all shifted to Calcutta and some of these players even came back but there was no any structured league in Dhaka structured football setup so all these people came down to Calcutta and played in different clubs but soon they realized that there was some sort of a biasness towards these people because for two or three reasons they spoke in a different language the dialect was different and secondly they thought that they were coming they were coming just to take their places and something like that so there was a social bias against them by the present people of West Bengal in those days particularly and who all own these clubs now in one of these clubs called Jorabha Gan he was president because of his evil and industrialist he came from West Bengal he brought in two players who had come down and were working in some colleges a PT teacher or something like that one of them was the other one was playing in some club one was Shorilesh Bose and the other one was Naushashen but he forced them to join East Bengal and join this Jorabha Gan club but during the whole season they were neglected many a time they were benched then came the great matin called Kuchbihar Kapi you see remember in those days in the IFA League the first division league of the shield only two Indian teams could be permitted to play in those days when Mohanma Gan and Aryanth had just got in I think four or five years back in 1915 to be 14 to be precise so Mohanma Gan was playing Jorabha Gan and all these Indian clubs Jorabha Gan, Pumatuli Town etc were waiting all their appetite in playing all these two tournaments one was called Traits Kap the other one was called Kuchbihar Kap in the semifinal of the Kuchbihar Kap Mohanma Gan was due to play Jorabha Gan that day particularly when the team line up was being finalized the team and the Jorabha Gan authorities I don't know whether they were put then had dropped both these players Naushashen and Shorilesh Bose Bangal they came in from Dhaka for higher studies and these were two of these Dhaka is Bangal Naushashen came from Dhaka Shorilesh Bose came from Kauritpur when they were dropped they were very disappointed and the next day it was they went to the vice president Mr. Shorilesh Bose in his house in Jorabha Gan in fact the house is still there and told him that on your advice we had come to this club but the whole season we have been neglected we have not been allowed to play and we cannot go on like this Mr. Choudhury immediately caught on their viewpoint and said okay now we will get an identity we will form a club of our own and it will be named Hispengal Club so that was the first appearances it was on Sunday first August and they decided so Mr. Mr. Choudhury took the role he was assisted by a gentleman called his friend since he was an industrialist who was a barrister who was a lawyer called Torik Bhushan Roy he incidentally belonged to the Dhaka Bhagakul family which later on produced two Indian test predictors Pankaj Roy and Ambar Roy the gentleman was the uncle of Pankaj Roy they got together and it was in his house just opposite the Komathruli Park in Calcutta they had the first meeting in which Professor Sharada Ranjan Roy who is to be the uncle of this famous Sratjit Roy the current director he, Maharaja Phantosh and even Deswundu Chitranjandar but Chitranjandar personally did not come he sent his brother to join the meeting and the club was formed and it was called Spengal after forming the club you see what happened was the president Choudhury said for identity we will have to pick on some jerseys so he took one of the players now a chap called Aurobindo Ghosh now who is this Aurobindo Ghosh Aurobindo Ghosh would also join his elder brother was Obilaj Ghosh of Mohan Bagan who had scored the winning goal in 1911 but later on when Obilaj Ghosh wanted to become the football secretary after his retirement Mohan Bagan just threw him away that also antagonised because he hailed from his Bengal also in fact in 1911 just one thing I wanted to ask you now Jadeep sir I will just come to you in a bit sir first thing since this club A was formed on the basis of us of a lot of angst that of course people are not accepting us for who we are in the club A and B you are naming the club East Bengal which means there is a direct connection to Dhaka which is in Bangladesh at the time was there a lot of resistance then to the forming of this club not from the people forming it but from the entire fraternity at the time no I think this part which has been researched not only in sports even in other fields they felt some sort of some sort of hindrances to these East Bengal people getting established in other fields also in education maybe in others and maybe in work because I told you the main reason was these people's dialect among themselves speak in a particular dialect which was not very common those days now of course it is years which is called something called Bangal dialect and this caused a number of big industrialist also in those days like Maharaja Santosh and this gentleman Professor Sharada Ranjendra who is principal of Vidyasagar college and even there is one to see that to come and support this club and give this particular identity and all the players who came from East Bengal would have a definite inclination to join this particular club so that was how it was formed now two things happened the credit goes to Mr. Choudhury and Mr. Todit Bhushan Roy so East Bengal was formed in 1920 sometime in August their league was already over by that time league and shield was over and they played a tournament a seven-site tournament in North Calcutta called Herpilis Cup in which even famous Goshto Palu was also held from East Bengal he played he played one match only of course and after when these things went away both these gentlemen realized that since they had formed the club on the basis of some sort of an emotion coming from people if they don't get into a very structured organization like joining the league or joining the other organized tournaments that would be very difficult to retain the players who will again go away to other clubs East Bengal was a baby club in those days they had to get into the second division of IFL league and they did it in 1921 and these two gentlemen should be congratulated because they very poorly found out the very sreptitiously found out that a club called Taj Haat Club who held from a certain part of Calcutta who was aiming to withdraw the club due to financial reasons due to financial reasons so they got hold of this gentlemen got a letter from him to say that he would resign and they got a letter written to IFL that they would join they jumped the queue in a way because there was not of other clubs like in those days like Kumar Trulish who had not joined the second division so these two people went and got to the IFL secretary and medley caught them and when they had the meeting they gave both the letters together Taj Haat withdrawing and East Bengal joining this was one very big achievement so East Bengal could retain their players and join the second division next year 100 years back when this club formed let's just admit to it that tradition has continued because even today you can jump the queue and join a top division something like what East Bengal did and in some way or the other if I may be jumping the gun but in some way or the other and people might not like me for saying this East Bengal forming Mohan Bagan has played a part in it winning that 1911 you suppose I am right in saying that see Mohan Bagan's 1911 Mohan Bagan's 1911 victory had played a huge part in entire Indian football not only in forming of East Bengal see before 1911 1914 Indian teams were not allowed in that IFL league but it only started after Mohan Bagan as Lotonda just said in 1915 Mohan Bagan and Adrian's were taken and teams were taken in the second division in the later years also East Bengal also joined the show so Mohan Bagan's 1911 victory not only played a part in East Bengal's forming I think it played a huge part in making what Indian football is today that includes East Bengal so I would say see East Bengal what East Bengal is today used not was in 1920 or certainly not as I can say and East Bengal were never Mohan Bagan's main rival in the first 20 years of their existence also Mohan Bagan's main rivals were people used to talk about Mohan Bagan vs Calcutta Mohan Bagan vs Jala or rather Mohan Bagan vs Mahan sporting but East Bengal came much later I would say it came in the late 30s and early 40s before that Mohan Bagan's prime rival was not East Bengal but the British clubs so then Gautam sir what were the first 10 years like say you've been formed in 1920 1930 how far I mean did it take them time to establish themselves as a good team a top team in Calcutta you see by the very name East Bengal it attracted a number of good players but that didn't mean they had the best team they played in the second division and of course four years later they gained a promotion they were joint champions with a club called Cameroons which was the army side of British and gained promotion to the first division they were joint champions with the Cameroons B team and Cameroons A team was already in the league already in the first division so Cameroons B couldn't qualify there and that gave an opportunity to East Bengal to qualify but there was another rule in those days there were not more than two Indian teams to be permitted to play in the first division that embargo that big embargo kept East Bengal out so that means only Mohan Bagan and the other team was which one sir Mohan Bagan and Indians Mohan Bagan and Indians were already there and if I had to take in East Bengal they had to break this rule they had to change the rules of the governing body now what happened was there be then president of East Bengal was a famous man Maharaj of Santosh his name was Santosh Trophy was formed later he he did two things brilliantly for the club one he did a lot of social work first on behalf of the club one of the main was the statue of setting up of the statue of Ashutosh Mukherjee in front of this Victoria house East Bengal's president Maharaj of Santosh organized two exhibition matches East Bengal did not play it was between Indians and Europeans it was in 1924 and 1926 and they and they must about 10,000 rupees and got the statue made this point of time when East Bengal became the champion and later claimed to get into the first division he said that East Bengal should be allowed to play now he had one major advantage to his side but in that point of time Mohan McGahn had objected they said that earlier Kumar Tully had also finished champions of the second division later but they did not get that entry why should East Bengal be given a preference but he argued that in East Bengal matches we didn't mind while they were playing second division because the name of East Bengal lot of identity of this people who had moved in from East Bengal who were habitant in Calcutta used to come and the East Bengal matches used to draw large crowds which attracted the the IFA to give show a little partiality to East Bengal would I be right in saying sorry sir would I be right in saying that the rebels and I don't mean rebel in a bad term but the rebels in Kolkata are all attracting towards East Bengal because you are not part of the the lineage and the hierarchy and all those people are coming there partly correct because East Bengal as I mentioned they felt a little out of the social of the society because of the various they felt it was very funny they felt a lot of partiality being done whether it's in job market even in in the marriage market they said no East Bengal the girls would get married to any West Bengal in those days this forced these youth forced these youth people to show their vengeance when they played the football magicians whatever team in fact the first derby in the league in 1925 on the 28th of May drew backstands East Bengal didn't have a very good side but he had won in that mad moon man dominated but East Bengal would keep a plate very well but sir you've called it a derby at that time I mean derby of course were calling it now 100 years later it was time for derby that time it must have been a massive upset if anything it was an upset but at the same time what same time what Gautam Das said is also right Mohanmagan were the were the most dominant force in Indian football see there were other Indian teams also like Aryan saw as Gautam Das said Kumar Tuli and Town Club and Nationals and and what not so many Indian clubs were there but none of them were able to eat into Mohanmagan's fan base like East Bengal did see if you look at old time East Bengal people old timers from East Bengal they are from East Bengal only old timers but they still they remained all Mohanmagan fans because Mohanmagan were the only club in the country they considered Mohanmagan their club but because of the name of East Bengal it ate away Mohanmagan's fan base to a great extent because East Bengal means people from those certain districts who are not discriminated they are well I come from West Bengal in my family nobody is married from the districts of West Bengal when we look for match we don't look for see somebody is marrying on their own that you can't help it but when you look for a match you don't see anybody from East Bengal that's well you can there is no discrimination so what happened the East Bengal had an identity East Bengal made which I think which ate into Mohanmagan's fan base and that's why I think Mohanmagan were worried and they one did not want East Bengal to come up to the first division that's my my belief is that's one of the reasons I could be because no other club could eat into Mohanmagan's fan base which East Bengal did and did it from the day one only because of their name their name was such that a section of the people from the certain certain sector of Bengal will be attracted to the team yes Gautam sir you wanted to say something sorry sorry sir he is absolutely right in fact there were two things one East Bengal was the main club which ate into the Mohanmagan's fan base in other words even the source of players lot of players who came from East earlier before East Bengal was born most of them played from Mohanmagan in fact I told you in 1911 seven of their players hailed from East Bengal even later Ghostapal Chunigoswami much later Subradha Bhattacharya they all come from East Bengal and that's also another reason they thought that East Bengal plays with their own name all the players because of the name will go to them play against them their supply line would get a little diluted but I was thinking about another very important story about this Ghotibangal rivalry please tell us sir we love stories there are so many stories in Kolkata it's so romantic the entire love affair with football please tell us sir but had he mentioned no for you sir had he mentioned of these people coming from East Bengal supporting Mohanmagan I can name three or at least three gentlemen who grew up in that era came from Dhaka and other places but for blind Mohanmagan supporters one was our former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu the other one was this PWD minister in his time Mr Jyoti in Chakravati he also hailed from East Bengal in fact he campaigned in his election campaign going house to house he is the Rahman Mohanmagan fan but when he realized that he had come to East Bengal house he said nobody hailed from East Bengal and that's why he campaigned in his constituency Mr Jyoti Basu was the famous film director he also hailed from East Bengal but then he was an avid Mohanmagan fan Jyoti Basu so of course we have spoken about that one nil win over Mohanmagan that came in the 20s but till then of course still the gap was huge when would you say that gap between Mohanmagan and East Bengal started diminishing a little bit would it be right in the 30s and 40s that the gap started diminishing or rivalry started to become in the 30s of course in the 30s of course see I think both were good teams from the day one that is Bengal beat Mohanmagan in the very first match it goes to prove that they were also a very good team well this kind of rivalry was not there people didn't perhaps didn't talk so much about it the way they talked about Mohanmagan versus Calcutta and Mohanmagan versus Dalhoussi against British teams the way Mohanmagan played but I think it started from the 30s but there is also a reason for it which Gotonda will be able to tell us in detail I think that when East Bengal looked for a ground at that point they wanted a permanent ground at the Maidan in the 30s at that time the police commissioner of Calcutta was Charles Stegert who was a terror for the terrorists and all the freedom movement people Charles Stegert almost forced Mohanmagan to share the ground with East Bengal so they shared the ground till 1962 or 63 the two teams were sharing the same ground now they have separated but at one point of time 30 years they shared the same ground it also added to the rivalry because once you lose the other party will start telling you are you lost what happened Pidga from the other tent so it will be vice versa so that was also one of the reasons for Mohanmagan I think from the 30s onwards the gap started early 30s onwards see in the 20s which Gotonda didn't tell you that East Bengal once got demoted from the second division to the second division next year in two years they got promoted also they got promoted also and after that I think East Bengal's great run started but that relegation part I think helped East Bengal much more once they got relegated these players and who had abandoned the club who's earlier here and these players even the others thought that their morality was hurt so they all came back they left their jobs you won't hear such things now they left their jobs and rejoined the club in fact East Bengal got promoted in 1930 itself when they won all their matches but that year the league was abandoned because of that Mohanmagan movement and within another two years they got promoted I'll tell you in the 30s the rivalry started picking up then because they felt that they were humiliated by getting this in 30s to 40s East Bengal like the current scenario like they missed the eyelid so many times by one or two points in 30s to 40s they missed the CFL championship by one point they became 5 times they became runners up but Mohanmagan became the champion in 1939 though on the field in 1911 in those days when Mohammedan sporting was going on East Bengal could have made any of the in fact in 1933 sorry in 1932 when they had Salim playing for East Bengal in 1933 they missed by one point in the last match they had a game against Aryans which they could have won but Aryans were situated in the other ground with the present Mohammedan sporting ground and their officials and East Bengal players started fighting because of some issue or the other and that distracted the team and East Bengal didn't fail to win that match otherwise had they won that match they would have become champions in 1933 before Mohammedan sporting and there were four other occasions in the same period like the current scenario where East Bengal is missing the I-League they missed the Calcutta Football League for the 5 times Jadib sir 30 to 40 any specific moments in society that tell you that East Bengal in terms of off the field what all is happening for East Bengal see off the field off the field I think what happened to East Bengal not only happened to East Bengal but it happened to the entire society including people or fans from Bon Magan also that is the in the 1930s of an election Bengal election in which Muslim League won the election Muslim League and of course Krishakma Supriya party came in the first rule they won the election and formed the government so that was the first so and that was the time where Mohammedan sporting started dominating dominating also I am not saying there is there is some relation between the two but somehow that was the time between see between 1934 and 1939 or 1941 these 8 years Gautunda will agree with me East Bengal and Mohan Magan were on the went to the backdrop of Indian football because it was such a dominant show by Mohammedan sporting out of 9 years they won the league I think 8 times or 7 times or something like that except once Mohan Magan getting in that too because some other teams withdrew in 1939 so East Bengal and Mohan Magan were were in this period if you ask me specifically as you have asked me Arjun specifically between 1934 and 1930s and early 1940s East Bengal and Mohan Magan were not the main teams in Calcutta football it belonged to Mohammedan sporting that's an era belong to Mohammedan sporting only Gautunda sir what sort of brought the turn around in the 40s one was Mohammedan East Bengal had a general secretary a rather an assistant general secretary then a person called D.C. Guha D.C. Guha who himself was a footballer he played as a goalkeeper in a club earlier in one of the teams he is a recruit like Mohammedan sporting they had a club called Aziz who built up the team this D.C. Guha selected a number of players from South India like Sumana, Lakshmi Narayan was little earlier Sumana, Parjalee, Nair and all these things and 40s were and later on of course from 48 onwards the famous entrepreneurs Venkatesh, Apparao, Dhanraj, Dhamit Khan and Hale now in this if you take the period from 42 to 52 then this was the time when they had the bulk of people coming in from East Bengal and East Pakistan and joining in sporting the team East Bengal won the league won as many as 14 trophies and this was the time when they beat Mohanmagan 5 years in a row when people who came to stand they felt very happy today they have beaten Mohanmagan 5 years in a row they won in the fair of Sumana and then the famous Pandas Pancha Pandas came and I thought that was the real time when the rivalry started and East Bengal was really born the club was really born and that was the time because these headless people who had come from they could also look they had lost everything, they could also look for their future they could find East Bengal as a sort of an identity and their success and they really cherished it in their lives I'll tell you a shop called DHAKECHURI who sells sarees in South Calcutta their gentleman came over walking down in grihar and he told me once I think his sons used to play football and one of them played Mohanmagan hud and hath he told me that in the family history all these small businessmen because East Bengal players didn't get a job  Illinois ữ Whoa ivan re 年的 电力 school of                                                                                                                                ,... వాభాటృ వరాయం అలాయసింహి రెపివినాసి. నిసిబంగాయారంవ౿సా. సిసిసానిసి. చారందిఎంట౨ిమియిసాలం పిరూగాపికడియి నిసివికననుని. వారం� నియిరి పతిం మాదా బకలట собой � sprayمటికింట ఇగ్ఖతా కశివగికఫ మ౟ూగెటంని� background exam in Seattle, రపమంలి ప౮ధప఑టి゚ ! మపాన౗నిఊికనిలా !  compromised�ప�జ్ా�ברస్ం రాద్� safe for , ఇ czę మ౎మ్ సినుమ్లి పెలలు పఠీక్చాకిలు ఆంటెซాకా్దినుడ్రి, రింయాఠిక్ మరాంటం తంవసి �ke36 protocolsg సింట్ ను�하고 ఇస్పకాకాపఃం Australia వాకుత్టారంగన్ల్పినిలుపిశిల్సంికుని చాకోలని న్లి లినంవారంగత్ట్ ఒసంత్లా . గాశికినోవి కోట్వి కోటినేంది ఆంధయా నారెచిల్టోది మాసులికికికామిలోటెట్ని నారెట్ట్టసందాలి అరందిమికోనోది టాలికోటికగ కంది� The club must have managed so well that the greatness it achieved in 100 years, those 25 years which were talking about from 19—27, from 1920-1947 where, before the prepartition days, we talked about. We must appreciate the way the club was run despite so much trouble. They were not financially a great club and they had so much financial support of anything. but what they achieved will go down in the Indian football history forever I think. Today we are celebrating 100 years of East Bengal. This club wouldn't have survived 100 years just for this other two gentlemen, Jyaydeep rightly said, the management and two people in particular, three people, Suresh Choudhary and his friend, Toli Troy and Maharaja Santhosh. Had East Bengal not got into the league in very next year of its formation, it was club was formed by an emotion, the club wouldn't have survived, the team wouldn't have survived. All these players would have gone, they wouldn't have been in East Bengal. And again in 1925, when they got into the first division, fighting with all the women, it would catch the Maharaja Santhosh. And I don't think, again, East Bengal would have been in existence, it would have gone the same way. As Mafa Plal and Jay Singh Tiya had the birth police and all. Of course, they were institutional teams and even emotional teams, East Bengal wouldn't. And these gentlemen in those days had a much bigger contribution. Later on, of course, we had Jay Singh Gooha and Dr. Nripendra. But this club which survived 100 years was mainly primarily because of the gentlemen in the early days. Sir, I think you summed it up perfectly. And I think this was a lovely conversation. This was just one part of our conversation. Now, there are two parts left. Our Dadi people from the Taliban, our friend Siddhanthani, he's going to be joining Jaydi Pasu. And a very special guest who will talk about East Bengal post partition. But I think the line is perfect. East Bengal was formed on an emotion. A club that's been formed on an emotion for them to last for 100 years. And my guess is they will last much longer post this 100 years. That in itself is a major achievement and one must salute the people who managed the club in those first 27 years. So we've spoken about pre-partition. Time now to head to Siddhanthani and Jaydi Pasu to talk about East Bengal and all that they achieved post-partition.