Calcutta: After the Edeh Chidis and Jose Ramirez Barretos exorcised the ghost of 1975, that Sunday, it was the turn of the fans to give something back to them.

On Wednesday, a group of Bagan fans gave a cheque for Rs 53,000 to club secretary Anjan Mitra for upgrading the club gym.

The money was collected through an Internet messenger site. The Mohun Bagan community on the web has hundreds of members who donated money either through money exchange or cheques. “ One of our fans came up with this idea and all the group members gave the go ahead,” Shiladitya Mitra, one of the moderators of the group said Wednesday.

This is not the first time that the Bagan fans have come forward to do something for the club, and their faithful.

Last year, when a Bagan supporter Sajib Jana succumbed to injuries after falling from the Salt Lake Stadium stands during the Fed Cup final, fans across the world pooled in around Rs 1 lakh and handed over the cheque to Jana’s widow. Even Bencharifa had chipped in.

Community bonding is an integral part of European club culture but, in India, we hardly get to see anything like it.

Some twelve years back, in Delhi, a club called City AC, who used to be run on a shoestring budget, were handed a fine of Rs 15,000 by the Delhi Soccer Association. The followers of the club were mainly from the economically backward sections of the society. Yet they pooled in the money and paid up. Interestingly the club went on to win the league title and, guess what the prize money was? Rs 15,000!