Boys from Indus Valley World School clinched a 1-0 victory over the host school in the final match of War of Gladiators, an inter-school football tournament hosted by St. Joseph and Mary’s School, in association with The Telegraph Young Metro. The eight-a-side tournament spanned over four days saw 15 city schools fight it out on the field. Sukumar Samajpati, former East Bengal skipper, graced the closing ceremony as chief guest and felicitated the finalists. David Benjamin Diehl, head coach of the German under-15 squad, and Mohun Bagan goalie Shilton Paul were present at the opening ceremony on September 5. “It was my first best player award and I’m really happy to have won it. I’ve scored a hat-trick against The Heritage School in the semi-final,” said Rahul Guha, Class XII, a champion school left-winger, the player of the tournament.
It was a clash of kings and queens as top players from across the state engaged in a mind game at The Heritage Schools’ Chess Championship 2017, in association with The Telegraph Young Metro, organised by Bengal Chess Association. South Point High School and Shri Shikshayatan School grabbed the top position among boys and girls respectively. Rajdeep Sarkar, a Class XI student of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, won Blitz — the time-controlled format of the game. Mitrabha Guha, a Class XI student of South Point High School, won the individual event. “The competition was tough as most of the top players took part here,” said Rajdeep. Grandmaster Surya Sekhar Ganguly was present along with other dignitaries during the prize distribution ceremony, which also marked the launch of a chess fortnightly titled The Chess Bengal (English edition) and Chaturanga Bengal (Bengali edition).
Jhulan Goswami, the former skipper of the Indian women’s cricket team, launched Pehle Pre-School, a new initiative by Little Laureates, a pre-school education start-up founded by Tamal and Timir Mukherjee. Little Laureates has 100 centres since its inception in 2012. “Pre-schools are not run properly here although there are a lot of them abroad. School is a very important part of our lives. Whatever we learn at a young age stays with us forever,” said Goswami. She also shared stories about her school days and urged parents and teachers to allow children at least two hours for sports everyday.
Sri Sri Academy recently inaugurated its revamped playground with AstroTurf. The school now also boasts a practice pitch for budding cricketers. The ground can be used for various sports such as football, cricket, volleyball and handball. The AstroTurf and improved drainage facility will ensure that the students can play even in the monsoon. “Our school is seven years old and for the past five years we have been trying to plant natural grass on the field. But it didn’t work. Natural grass wears away within three weeks of plantation as the students play regularly and the surface becomes rough. Students also get injured easily. So we decided to lay AstroTurf,” said Suvina Shunglu, the principal. Students of classes XI and XII played an exhibition football match to get the feel of the newly laid AstroTurf. “It was amazing to play on this turf. It’s very good and we are lucky to get such a ground. We want to thank our principal ma’am and the school authorities for providing us with this great facility,” said Anand Taparia, Class XII, who is the captain of the school cricket team and also loves to play football. Former Maidan greats Shyam Thapa and Jamshid Nassiri were the chief guest and the guest of honour respectively on the occasion.
Text by Ayan Paul and Chandrajit Mitra; pictures by Arnab Mondal, Gopal Senapati and Koushik Saha
