Latey Bhakundo

On the 6th of December 2008 came the biggest moment of my life as a football fan. The “Football God” himself had descended to Kolkata and I had the opportunity to attend his Press Conference at the ITC Sonar Bangla hotel. We reached there pretty early and were taken to the makeshift Press Area which was created at the hotel lawns. I just sat there and started to get excited to see non-other than Diego Armando Maradona himself. Never saw him play live but my Dad’s story about him and the recorded videos of his matches was enough for me to become his follower. During my school days, I had pasted his picture on my school dairy with a caption “God of Football”. There were nearly a hundred media people and all of them had that look of excitement on there faces. That day I think all the journalists had become fans. I also over-heard one scribe talking to another about a possibility of a photo op with the “God”. But the security was tight and we were kept ten feet away from the dais....

In the border town of Rangpo on the West Bengal side, you might see a group of boys training every day. Even in these tough times of COVID 19, they are turning out in the ground every morning to be in touch with their favorite game. The credit for encouraging these kids goes to the local youth, Sukraj Rai, and his friends. “Currently, we are giving football practice to the kids of our village regularly, even in this time of Lockdown because we don’t want these kids to be away from football and we also want to see their dreams of becoming footballers come true so I am training them continuously. For this many NGOs like the World Vision and Rangpo Youth Welfare Association, a renowned club from our village are supporting us.” Said Sukraj. He further added that they are hopeful that they will keep getting the support in future as well and even after this (Lockdown) will continue the football practice, they come to the ground at 5 am and after practice gets over at 6.30 or 7 am the se...