Footballers present and past (from left) Dipendu Biswas, Mihir Bose and Aloke Das gift a cheque for Rs 1 lakh to their coach Gopal Majumdar in Basirhat on Sunday. (Pabitra Das)

Trevor Bayliss in Jaipur would have gladly swapped places with Gopal Majumdar in Basirhat on a T20 Sunday afternoon of contrasts for the two coaches, one a high-profile name in cricket and the other an unsung hero in Maidan football.

“I still cannot believe this is happening,” Majumdar told Metro after a game of 20-minutes-a-half football that saw the cream of the Maidan, past and present, turn out to pay tribute to the man who had taught them what it takes to play for the top clubs without asking for anything in return.

Dipendu Biswas, Aloke Das, Mihir Bose, Debabrata Baidya and Mrityunjay Hazra represented Basirhat XI versus a Sports Minister’s XI comprising former stars like Lulu, Basudeb Mandal, Tushar Rakshit, Bikash Panji and Moidul Islam. It didn’t matter to the packed BSF ground who won. There was to be only one winner, and he wasn’t even playing the game.

“My contribution to Basirhat and Maidan football is being recognised at last. I couldn’t ask for more,” said the 60-something Majumdar, who still runs the tea stall built by his wards for him 22 years ago. “I just had to put the kettle over the oven and customers would pour out the tea by themselves, take biscuits from the jars and put the money in a box. Nobody ever cheated me,” recounted Majumdar.

His now-famous wards handed him a cheque for Rs 1 lakh after Sunday’s game, though “Gopalda” would have been happy just with the respect they showed him.

So didn’t he himself nurture a dream to play club football? “I did play the first division but gave up my career as right-half for Basirhat’s Milan Sangha because I wanted to produce good footballers,” he said.

Health problems have prevented Majumdar from coaching budding footballers over the past two years, but he retains touch with the game. “I cannot take the strain anymore. I believe in taking the field with the players and showing them what I want hands-on,” he said.

Mohammedan Sporting striker Dipendu, whom Majumdar had coached in his teenage years, called him a man ahead of his time. “I had a few sessions under Gopalda as a teenager when he came to train us at New Bani Sangha here in Basirhat. He was at least 15 to 20 years ahead of his time. He stressed on endurance, ball control and speed much before such kind of training was in vogue,” he said.

For former India captain Aloke Das, the grand old man of Basirhat football was more than a coach, he was a father figure who went out of his way to help his wards. “When I first met him, I did not have money to buy a jersey or a paid of keds, forget football studs. Gopalda bought all those for me,” Das added.

Retired soldier Kanchan Mukherjee, a childhood friend of Majumdar, recounted how the do-gooder coach’s family supported him even when he spent his meagre earnings on his wards. Tumpa, the second of his three daughters, said she and her siblings were proud rather than miffed that their father often put football ahead of his family.

“He is a contented man, having married off me and my sisters. He is, above all, a simple man who knows how to be happy with what he has,” she said, watching Sunday’s match.

If there is something Majumdar isn’t happy about, it is that Basirhat doesn’t produce footballers like it used to. “An academy with all the requisite facilities will inspire me to make a comeback to coaching,” he promised.

And like always, his tea shop “can run on its own”.

Do you know anyone like Gopal Majumdar who has dedicated his/her life to churning out champions without expecting anything in return? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com