Rediscovering Indian Football Glories through Stamps

Avyay Tivari

India reached the semi-final of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. It almost beat Yugoslavia in Melbourne in the semi-final, but unfortunately lost 4-1. These days hardly anyone notices the Indian football team. Very few Indians know the starting eleven well.
I will be narrating India’s footballing past through stamps on doyens of Indian football.

Postage stamps are issued in order to commemorate great personalities, events, inventions, etc. The Department of Posts has issued nine stamps on football (see Table 1), including two stamps on the legendary footballers Gostha Behari Paul and Subongwati Talimeren Ningdangri.

The Chinese wall
Gostha Behari Pal, also known as Gostha Paul, one of India’s finest defenders, was born on 20th of August 1896, in a small village called Bhojeshwar which is in the district of Faridpur (now in Bangladesh). He moved to Calcutta in 1907. He played his first professional match for Mohun Bagan in 1913 when he was 16 and was part of the team for 22 years. Mohun Bagan was the first Indian team to win the IFA Shield. They beat the Yorkshire Regiment 2-1 in the finals. A special cover was issued on the centenary of their famous victory. Gostha Paul was dubbed the “THE CHINESE WALL” by The Times of India because no one went past him in games. Gostha Paul once famously said, “I didn’t fear them, but it was they who feared me”. On 27th April 1962 Gostha became the first footballer to receive the Padma Shri Award. On 20thAugust 1998, the Department of Posts issued four lakh commemorative postage stamps on Gostha Paul. He was the first Indian footballer to be featured on a stamp.

The Barefoot Captain
Subongwati Talimeren Ningdangri, better known as Dr Talimeren Ao, was an Indian footballer and physician born on 28thJanuary 1918 in the village of Changki, in the then Naga Hills district of Assam. When he was studying in Guwahati’s Cotton College, he once saw a football club called Maharana training on his college’s pitch. After their training session was over, he asked them if he could try out for the club. They deployed him as a defensive midfielder. One of his friends from Maharana named Sarat Das introduced him to Mohun Bagan in 1943 where he first had to pay a joining fee before working his way into their first XI. He eventually became the captain of Mohun Bagan. Talimeren was a dominating presence in midfield and defence for nine seasons at Bagan (1943-1952).

He was also the first captain of the Indian football team and the flag bearer of the Indian Olympic contingent at the 1948 London Olympics. They got a walk over in their first match against Burma. In their second match they lost against France 2-1.They got eliminated in the group stage. Their final rank was eleventh in the whole tournament, but the team performed better in later Olympics (see Table 2). After the match while interacting with the media, he was asked why Indians played barefoot. He famously replied, “In India, we play football, whereas you play bootball!” The comment was published in several London newspapers. In that year India also beat Dutch powerhouse Ajax on a tour of club matches in Holland and beat several English sides in friendlies and competitive games alike.

Talimeren had to give up competitive football to pursue his medical career. Legend has it that Dr Talimeren Ao was offered a year’s contract with Arsenal Football Club in England, but he rejected the offer as he wished to continue his studies. He eventually earned his MBBS degree in 1950. He was appointed as an assistant civil surgeon in 1953. He retired as Nagaland’s Director of Health Services in 1978.

On 28th of January 2018, the Department of Posts issued six lakh stamps on Dr Talimeren Ao which was proposed by the Dr T Ao Birth Centenary Celebration Committee.

As another world cup is under way without India, one wonders if we will get to see the likes of Gostha Paul and Dr Talimeren Ao again.

Table 1: Indian stamps on football

Table 2: Ranking of Indian football team in the Olympics

Sources:
Information brochures of stamps issued by the Department of Posts
https://olympics.com/en/news/history-of-indian-football
https://olympics.com/en/news/first-captain-indian-football-team-talimeren-ao
https://postagestamps.gov.in/CommemorativePostageStamps.aspx