Goooaaalllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spent my adolescent years in the 80's in Kerala, where football was way more popular than cricket (I am talking about the game that is played primarily with the foot, with a round ball). A game that is not expensive to play and with few technical stuff, it was the staple part of the life of an malayali adult male.

Kerala did not have mega clubs like Mohun Bagan or East Bengal, so the Santosh Trophy, the Inter-state championship, was huge. The earliest recollection I have is that of 1981 when it took place in my home town. The stadium was a few hundred yards from my house. The star of Kerala was Kuttappan, a stocky man, who stood at 5 ft 2, but has good dribbling skills. I was in first grade, but watching him score a hat-trick against a weak Gujarat team, I became a big fan. My aunts teased me with the nickname Kuttappan for a while. But Kuttappan and the kerala side met its match against the mighty Bengal, with the legendary Bhaskar Ganguly warding off every shot at goal. Eventually Bengal won the trophy beating Raliways.

Another big event was the now defunt International Nehru cup. This was the only chance for malayalees to watch International football. Although most teams that took part were composed of the second wrung players for most countries, we did see some players who later went on to achieve fame in International scene. Neri Pumpedo, the GK of the 1986 Argentian world cup side, Igor Balenov and Rinat Dasaev from the Soviet Union were some of them.

My interest was wide enough to follow Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. Most players form Kerala ended up playing for these two teams, starting from Xaviar Pius in the late 70's to I.M. Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri in the late 90's. Both were from my own town. In fact as a kid I remember watching Vijayan play when he was a 13 year old. I remember another guy called Kannan, slightly older, who used to kick his ass. Wonder what happened to him.

In college, while the rest of the class teamed up to play cricket, three of us rebels, started the official 'ECE-97 FC'. Funds were raised through contributions - sometimes through a little intimidation, to buy the ball. Afternoon classes were bunked in favour of the game that was keenly contested. All the fun came to an end when my dad who was a prof in the same college, caught me playing at 2:00 p.m when I should have been in my class learning Digital Signal Processing.

For nearly 8 years I had nothing to do with football. This winter I made the decision to dorn cleats again. I joined the ZOgSports soccer league, where I was teamed up with 14 total strangers. In our third match yesterday, I scored my first goal in the league!. I was on a counter attack, a good crossed ball was not trapped by the opposing team's defender and there it was, right on the sweetest spot possible! The goalkeeper was on the wrong side of the post and all I had to do was to punch it in. Woohoo!

We won the game 4-1 and I feel like a million bucks.