Pradip Kumar Banerjee Krirangan, the flood-lit ground in GD Block, is the seat of footballing action this winter. In a development that would surely have delighted the football icon, whose house overlooks the park and in whose memory the ground was renamed after his death in March 2020, a private group has started grassroots-level football training here.

UKSC Academy, an initiative of the Techno India Group, kicked off its Calcutta operations with a colourful show at the venue on Saturday. The ground was segregated into separate sections for holding workshops with enrolled players in three age groups. As the tots were trained in fitness and the seniors in ball control, six drones took flight carrying the academy jerseys in a novel unveiling.

The academy had opened in Siliguri on August 31, 2025. “We plan to spread out in the districts as well — in Malda, Durgapur, Falakata, Coochbehar and Jalpaiguri to start with. Our nation needs better access to quality across all sports and our goal is to make structured, high-quality training available across disciplines. We want to raise the bar for what football in Bengal and India looks like,” said Sohinee Debnath, vice-president of Athleet International Sports, the parent sports entity under the Techno India Group as part of the group’s CSR commitment to nurturing sports and youth development.

United Kolkata Sports Club (UKSC) was born in 2024. “We have completed three seasons since the club’s inception, with the UKSC men’s team being promoted twice, from CFL first division to premier division as champions and this year from premier division to I-League 3,” she announced on stage.

The silverware won by the United Kolkata Sporting Club men's and women's teams being displayed in front of guests at the academy launch

The academy is open to girls as well, with the club having a women’s team that is achieving equally spectacular success. “This year, our women’s team won in the Kanyashree Premier B division. If you have daughters who are interested in football, it might be worth supporting them too,” Debnath urged audience members.

Yan Law, one of India’s youngest AFC professional licensed coaches, has taken charge as the head coach and technical head of UKSC Academy. “Our training modules are divided into six age groups. We want quantity first, then we will think of quality. We want UKSC teams to play in the youth leagues. That’s our plan for 2026,” he told The Telegraph Salt Lake. While the youngest among the trainees who walked out in club jerseys that afternoon were aged six years, the academy is open to four-year-olds right up to the age of 18 years.

The academy runs three batches on weekdays, from 4pm to 5pm while in the weekends, classes are from 7am to 8.30am. Then the senior women’s team and the men’s teams take over the ground for their training. “Our priority in terms of schedule is the kids,” said Law, who will be heading a pool of AFC and AIFF-licensed coaches. “We want to maintain a 1:15 coach-to-player ratio,” said the La Martiniere for Boys passout who used to play on the school team.

“We have different tailor-made programmes for both elite and basic level players. We are working with the GD Block residents’ association. Admission will be free for the children of the block. We have also arranged for yoga classes in the ground for local residents,” said Debdut Roychowdhury, secretary, UKSC and director, TIG. The monthly fees will be Rs 2,000 for all age groups.

Local councillor Ranjan Poddar, who took the initiative to install floodlights in the ground in 2022, said the ground’s proportions were in keeping with Fifa official guidelines. “Other than the lights, we have erected fencing, laid drainage lines, installed sprinklers and created pathways.” The ground, he clarified, will remain under the control of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation. “We have allowed them to practise here for free. They will maintain the ground, saving us the cost. And on days when they hold events, like today, they will pay us booking charges as per the prevalent rate,” he said.

The opening was attended by mayor Krishna Chakraborty, chairman Sabyasachi Dutta and TIG managing director Satyam Roychowdhury, who now owns a house in the block. Also present was British deputy high commissioner Andrew Fleming, who came dressed in Scotland’s football jersey. “We will play in the World Cup after a gap of 28 years. I want to honour that achievement,” he said, with a smile. “Scotland has shown what long-term aspiration can achieve. The size of a country’s population can never limit its potential. India has untapped potential. With structured football academies, like UKSC, and investment at the grassroots, the rise is inevitable, even if it takes time,” he predicted.

A couple of former players also witnessed the inauguration. Speaking to The Telegraph Salt Lake, Dipendu Biswas, who has played for both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, pointed out that he himself was a product of Tata Football Academy in Jamshedpur. “So were my contemporaries Renedy Singh and Shankarlal Chakraborty and my seniors, Alok Das, Carlton Chapman and Goutam Ghosh.” If representation from Bengal, which provided a steady line to the national team over the decades, has dwindled dramatically, the reason, he feels, lies in the propensity of talented players to chase money by playing the khep matches. “Our motivation was playing for Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and India in future. My first stipend at TFA was Rs 250. The season after which I signed for Mohun Bagan, I had earned Rs 1,000 as stipend. In the clubs, we earned about Rs 20,000 per month. Today’s boys are happy to play khep matches which can earn them anything between Rs 70,000 and 80,000 by playing four matches over a weekend. Why should they bother about waiting to play in big clubs?” Biswas lamented.

But Bengal winning the Santosh Trophy has provided motivation at the ground level as the state government has given jobs to all 22 players, the retired star forward, now a resident of FD Block, said.

Former East Bengal captain Sumit Mukherjee pointed out that UKSC was not TIG managing director Satyam Roychowdhury’s first brush with football. “When Bhaichung Bhutia co-founded the Football Players’ Association of India (in 2006), he had asked me to join as CEO. In those days, Aryan Club, which was a nursery of professional footballers, was going through a bad patch. I requested Satyam da to help out and Techno India has since backed the club,” said the resident of CA Block in New Town.