The Manchester United Cafe Bar franchise, like this one in Mumbai, has scored big with Red Devils fans

If tucking into Wayne Rooney’s favourite fish and chips at a ManU Café Bar is the Red Devils fan’s ultimate food fantasy, East Bengal loyalists could soon be fulfilling theirs with Ilish Finger Fry at their very own signature red-and-gold café.

The first East Bengal Club Lounge is set to open its doors next April on the sixth floor of a mall that is coming up off Jessore Road, close to the airport. The 3,000sq ft hangout with a football theme is a joint venture of East Bengal Club and Bluechip Projects.

“We have to think about new revenue streams. Look at how players’ remuneration has gone up with the likes of (Mohun Bagan recruit) Odafa Okolie charging a crore. This is one such venture,” club official Debabrata Sarkar told Metro.

The club’s share of the revenue generated by the venture will be spent on developing the junior team.

Bluechip boss Ritwik Das promised the lounge would score a culinary goal by luring even the rival Mohun Bagan fan with an array of lip-smacking food. The menu will, of course, be quintessentially Bengal. “There are so many traditional delicacies the new generation probably hasn’t heard of, much less savoured. We have tried to incorporate these in our menu,” Das said.

The starters will include such novelties as Loitya Machher Bora, while the main course will have “opar Bangla” specialities like Guri Kochur Ghonto and Mochar Gobindo Bhog. The fish menu promises blockbusters like Dhakai Bhapa Ilish and Borishali Ilish-er Aam Jhol along with Chitol Machher Peti Roast and Loitya Shutki.

The lounge will also have a memorabilia and souvenir section modelled on those of football clubs around the world. Das visited some of the top European clubs and their signature cafés and bars to get a sense of what would work.

Former East Bengal midfielder Tushar Rakshit, 43, said the club had nothing to lose and everything to gain from the venture.

“Football today is hand-in-glove with entertainment. I feel the eatery and the memorabilia shop will add to the club’s popularity,” said Rakshit, originally from Comilla.

East Bengal Club, formed in 1920 by Suresh Chandra Chaudhuri and his associates after the exclusion of star half-back Sailesh Bose from the Mohun Bagan playing XI for a Cooch Behar Cup match against Jorabagan, had struggled for years before coming into its own.

The club’s first big achievement was winning the IFA Shield in 1943. It repeated the feat two years later.

The club presently holds the record for the most IFA Shield victories and is tied with archival Mohun Bagan for the most number of National Football League and Durand Cup triumphs.

So will a lounge dedicated to East Bengal be able to bridge the great football divide and unite rival fans at the dining table?

“No way, the question doesn’t arise,” thundered Bagan loyalist Saugata Basu, insisting that a sip and bite at the lounge would be seen as treachery within the green-and-maroon gang.

Spoken like a true Bagan fan, but lounge promoter Das hopes to prove him wrong.

Das said the menu, including a variety of fish delicacies from the other side of the border, would be the unifying factor.

“Ashbe, ashbe…ilish-er lobh charte parbe na (They will, they will…they can’t resist the lure of ilish),” he smiled.