Hyderabad: From the small locality called Ammuguda in Secunderabad, Victor Amalraj rose to dizzy heights of captain India and all 3 famous teams of Kolkata–Mohun Bagan, Mohammedan Sporting and East Bengal Clubs.
Football was a popular game in the Secunderabad cantonment areas, especially Bolaram, Alwal, Trimulgerry, Picket, Gun Rock, RK Puram up to the 1990s. Interestingly, there were local clubs too playing matches.
Top class players like Tulsidas Balaram, K P Dhanraj, D Kannan, Peter Thangaraj, Susai, Anthony Patrick etc. emerged from the local club teams to represent India over the years.
Similarly, Hyderabad produced dozens of India players right from Olympians like Yusuf Khan, Zulfiqar, Moin, Salam, Noor Mohammad, Latif, Azizuddin, Hakeem, Hameed etc. Most importantly, the greatest coach, S A Rahim.
What nurtured good talent also were the popular league tournaments, the Rahim league and the bigger Nizam Gold Cup tournament.
Victor Amalraj and Shabbir Ali were the two of the greats from the twin cities who had the distinction of also captaining India teams at international tournaments.
The autobiography
So, given my little knowledge, but being a keen watcher of the game, I saw a wonderful opportunity presenting itself at the book launch of Victor Amalraj on Sunday (August 21) afternoon. An interaction and a photo opportunity were there for the asking.
Both of them, ironically are celebrities in the football crazy Kolkata and West Bengal even today than in their hometown. They also played their best game for the clubs in Kolkata. From the late1990s, they have been doing their best to revive football in Hyderabad.
The book titled Midfield Maestro is an autobiography of Amalraj, helped and written lucidly by Abhijit Sen Gupta, my senior both in academics–Nizam College and Osmania Journalism and with the Hindu Group, where he covered sports for 35 years (Abhijit Sen Gupta, incidentally, is a regular contributor to Siasat.com).
A soft spoken, knowledgeable sports scribe, and being a Bengali (though, a Hyderabadi now), Abhijit’s natural love for football, made him the right choice to co-author for Amalraj to write the book, which captures the past glory of the game in Hyderabad from the 1940s onwards.
Famed coaches like P K Banerjee, Amal Dutta and others knew Amalraj was a player who could be relied upon. His game was always near and clean. No fouls, no fights and no red cards. Just a couple of yellow cards in a superb career of nearly 25 years, wrote Abhijit.
Amalraj was one of the finest footballers of Asia. He was a midfield general who helped the defenders and the attackers. He was also disciplined both in and off the field, said S Nayeemuddin, Arjuna Awardee and another star from Hyderabad.
In his forward, V V S Laxman, described Amalraj as one of the best midfield players. Interestingly, not many football fans might know that Victor was deeply involved with Hyderabad Cricket. He was elected Executive Committee member of the Hyderabad Cricket Association and also served as manager of the Hyderabad Junior teams in 2007-8 and 2008-09. He managed the Ranji squad during 2014-14, he wrote.
It was a nice gathering of veteran football players, friends, colleagues and their families of Amalraj (retired from FCI after 40 years of service). There were many scribes (including, the nonagenarian, N Ganesan, one of the first sports journalists from Hyderabad and Rajam Ganesan, a consumer activist) at the launch event.
Ganesan recounted how the Hyderabad Police team was the best in the country in the 1950-60 era. Then, the AP Police team. He recalled the great role of coach Rahim and the glorious days.
Jayesh Ranjan, the Principal Secretary, Telangana Government did the official launch.
My association with football went up by several notches after meeting Shabbir Ali and Amalraj in person for the first time. Earlier, I had the privilege of interviewing quite of few of the Olympians for a Yuva Vani special programme on Hyderabad football in the early 1980s. I interviewed Nayeemuddin during the late 1980s.
In our Nizam College, we had a good team with players like Lavanya, Ramesh etc., who came from Bolaram, but gave up after University level. But, the College produced giants like the brothers Habeeb and Akbar.
Somasekhar Mulugu, former Associate Editor & Chief of Bureau of The Hindu BusinessLine, is a well-known political, business and science writer and analyst based in Hyderabad
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