Note: On August 18, 1898, Englishman’s Overland Mail ( a Calcutta-based newspaper) published an article titled ‘Football in East Bengal’. It provided an interesting account of friendly football matches organised in Barisal between Englishmen, mostly government servants, and local boys. Here we are publishing the article verbatim

Is there any mofussil station in Bengal or in all India where every Sahib in the place turns out regularly once or twice a week to play soccer with the school boys or others? Thera is one such station in East Bengal little known to fame and usually considered by members of the Civil Service as an undesirable place to be transferred to. Little do such men know of what they miss, little do they think that if they had only known of it, this station I am talking of, as compared to Behar, is what home is to the Andaman, what the sun is to the moon, what diamond is to glass. Readers must now be anxious to hear the name of this most desirable of stations. Let it be told, listened to and remembered. Barisal is its name, only known to common man as the place where the guns come from, and the place where the guns have been taken away from. Such is fame.

Barisal, the name itself conjures up in my mind countless morning gallops, endless picnics and perpetual dances. Shooting both of tigers and snipe is an everyday recreation, and to bag a leopard one need only walk down the bazar before chota hazari. (I have done it myself.) All three things may be obtainable in many stations, but Barisal has one supreme title to glory, possessed by no other place.

Football is our unique accomplishment from blazing June to dark October. Twice a week do the Europeans sally forth to friendly combat with Bengel’a haughty sons. What other station has ever played a team which included the Judge, Additional Judge. Magistrate, Joint and Assistant Magistrate, the DSP and two A. D. S. P.s. Not in the first bloom of lusty youth, were all the noble sportsmen; though grey was visible on the Judge’s head and the policeman’s hair was thinning, they all played not once but every time. For three successive seasons have these games taken place, and in the first year the Europeans generally won, but now the boys have learnt the game, and helped by youth and naked feet are very nearly, if not quite, the match for the Europeans with a full eleven, and when, as it is frequently the case, only eight or nine Sahibs are available, victory often rests with the boys. About 18 games have been played this year, of which the boys have won five and the Sahibs three, the rest being drawn. Tomorrow a great match takes place, and as both sides expect their strongest teams the match should be as exciting as it certainly will be muddy.

Before I stop let me warn intending visitors that no mosquito nets are necessary, because like in Iceland there are no mosquitoes in Barisal.

 

Banner photo: A representative photo.