All in the game, for fun and fame

After the on-field action is exhausted and the honours are won and lost, the CC&FC grounds come alive on the last night of the Cup with long-and-loud celebrations into the morrow. Drawing celebrities and participants, the Merchants? Cup finale is always a night to remember (provided you haven?t drowned in your drinks). Pictures by Rashbehari Das.

Pass the bloody ball or shoot for god?s sake! The admonishment from the MD could sting the junior exec momentarily. But it won?t hurt half as much as the harsh harangue inside the boardroom.

For this is the arena of the great leveller ? The Telegraph Merchants? Cup 5-a-side football tournament ? which pumps up the collective adrenaline flow of the city?s corporate community for three weeks, while bridging designation divides in offices, from Camac Street to Cossipore, Hazra to Hastings.

What kicked off on the CC&FC grounds as an 11-a-side mercantile meet in 1974 had to be shrunk in format the following year for want of players. Rai Copland of Ludlow Jute fetched the 5-a-side rulebook from the UK and the ball was set rolling in the country?s first such ?soccer fives?, which was to become a red dot in Calcutta?s corporate calendar.

The number of outfits in the fray has swelled from a mere 20 to 60-plus now and the flush of halogens has added fresh sheen and drama to the meet. Plucking it out of the rains and planting it in the midst of the dry season has ensured a better playing surface, besides adding to spectator comfort and giving the sponsors more value in the product.

All through, Calcutta?s, and indeed the country?s, most popular mercantile tournament has gathered momentum and grown in stature. While the growth has been seamless and spontaneous, the old order at the club that has nurtured the meet with great care, has fond memories from the early chapters.

?There was more social interaction then, and things are much more professional now,? observes Tublu Dutt, former CC&FC president and captain of the club when the tourney began in 1974. Sitting president Utpal Ganguly agrees that from a ?fun tournament?, the Merchants? Cup has become a serious event. ?It?s more competitive than participatory these days,? he points out. ?Winning is everything.?

Anand Mandapaka, former India hockey goalie and a keen soccer Merchants? cupper, remembers how they went at each other?s throats on the pitch and also the great camaraderie off it. ?We called the referee ?Sir? and bought him a drink after the match, irrespective of whether he had ejected a team-mate or awarded a non-existent spot-kick against us.?

Immediately after the finals, the winner?s trophy was filled with ?a special concoction? mixed by the club?s ace bartender Salim, to be downed in a jiffy by one and all present as the cup went around. That sweeping bonhomie is a thing of the past, laments Arabinda Bose, immediate past president and one of the stalwarts of the meet, having featured in the finals five times.

?It was a close-circuit affair as we all knew each other by first names. Now, it?s much more impersonal and the size of the field hardly permits such cross-corporate comradeship,? says Bose. Whoever plays the Merchants? Cup should be eligible for a club membership, stresses Deepankar Nandi, CEO & managing member of CC&FC.

While not all among the 500-plus players taking the field these days would satisfy the club?s stringent membership criteria, soccer skills can still raise their stock in the job market. ?If you play decent football, it?s a definite plus on your CV, because it shows you are a teamman, robust and know how to get on with it,? smiles Noomi Mehta, the Selvel supremo and a Merchants? Cup regular for years.

The mix at the captains? meet has also changed. While earlier, it was tea, jute, coal and banking that sent most of the teams to the arena, nowadays, there are a clutch of IT, transport and new-age service sector companies squaring up against one another. Why, even Red Hot Chilli Pepper had fielded a squad!

?It reflects the changing business profile of the city,? says Ravi Kidwai of Carritt Moran, another tournament veteran. Kidwai, however, feels the fundamentals of the meet have remained constant. ?There is still serious homework done on the opponents, you get to know the other side of your boss and everybody has a whale of a time over these three weeks outside the nine-to-five straitjacket,? he offers.

A Merchants’ Cup match underway, and (above) the trophies to play for

From around eight matches a day played on one arena, the Merchants? Cup now hosts more than 20 ties spread across four pitches. There are enough volunteers to supervise matches or man the info-desk, and there are hardly any pushover outfits, with the general standard of the field improving steadily.

Still, nostalgia rules the turf at the CC&FC. Bose recalls how, many a time, the start of a match featuring Doc (Vece) Paes had to be delayed on some pretext or the other since he was invariably late from his clinic. The old-timers still swoon over the dazzling skills of tournament stalwarts like Ravi Thapa, Ransdale Deane, Eugene Jennings, Paes and Bose. Alongside, there were Maidan icons like Chuni Goswami, Santo Mitra and Bidyut Majumder.

?Till the early 90s, one day of the Merchants? Cup was reserved for an exhibition soccer match between the ladies and the menfolk of the club, where the gentlemen could only run backwards,? remembers Ash Kapoor. Another match featured the bar and kitchen staff on one side and the malis and durwans on the other.

The tournament was born out of a time constraint when the sport had to be compressed to fit post-work timeframes, and Copland?s Ludlow Jute beat Carritt Moran to lift the inaugural cup quite appropriately. Now, the way forward is to make the meet national and then, perhaps international, feel most club veterans who have aged with the Merchants? Cup?s most enduring brand.