Jose Ramirez Barreto tries to get past Sumit Ghosh of Eastern Railway, on Sunday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: Mohun Bagan’s dream of winning the Calcutta Football League for the fourth successive time almost went kaput till Eastern Railway’s Fanny Abraham gave them a lifeline and three vital points.

The Sunday match was in the dying moment and Bagan, who were desperately looking for a goal, earned a corner. Jayanta Sen floated in one and Fanny outjumped Surabuddin Mallick and Railway goalkeeper Biswanath Sengupta to head in his own goal!

A draw would have given East Bengal a seven-point cushion over their arch-rivals and the league would have been as good as over for Stanley Rozario’s boys. Luckily for them, Fanny was ‘at the right place at the right time’ to bail them out. After seven matches, Bagan have 16 points while East Bengal, who played 10 are on top of the table with 30 points.

Eastern Railway did not deserve to lose the match and they should rue their luck for not taking home a point.

They defended dourly and cramped their half with nine players to minimise the threat of Jose Ramirez Barreto and Edeh Chidi. And even when Bagan had a look at the goal like the one in the very first minute when Surabuddin found himself all alone inside the box, there was Sengupta under the bar saving everything thrown at him.

“Undoubtedly he was the man of the match,” Rozario heaped praise on the Eastern Railway goakeeper. “But full marks to my boys. They never lost hope and kept on trying. It is very difficult to get a result against a team which just refused to move up and was happy to sit back and defend,” Rozario added.

Indeed. In a match like this what you need is an early goal and the pressure obviously piles up when you don’t get one.

Probably Subair Murithala Ali, who was serving a one match ban could have made the difference. A half-fit Chidi and off-form Barreto failed to give direction to the Bagan attack.

As time went, the spectators grew restless and Bagan players started feeling the pressure. They tried hard to break down the rival defence but failed. The likes of Babun Kar, Joydeep Bose and Anthony Soren were refusing to yield even an inch.

Till that largesse from Fanny.

Bagan still are in with a chance to retain the title. Very faint hope but still…

TEAMS

Mohun Bagan: Shilton Paul; Kingshuk Debnath, Sagram Mandi, Karan Atwal, R Dhanarajan, Surabuddin Mallick, Jayanta Sen, J Satish Kumar (Ashim Biswas 63), Snehasish Chakraborty, Chidi Edeh, Jose Ramirez Barreto (Souvik Chakraborty 81).

Eastern Railway: Biswanath Sengupta; Santanu Bit (Subhankar Maity), Babun Kar, Anthony Soren, Jaydeep Bose, Bapi Halder, Sanjit Dutta Bhoumick, Dipankar Ghosh (Sumit Ghosh 60), Fanny Abraham, Supriyo Bhakta, Tanmay Ghosh.

Referee: Sambhu Nath Shaw

MoM: Biswanath Sengupta