Anita Sarkar. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

She is a woman in her 40s who teaches young men how to play football. Meet Anita Sarkar, the only woman coach of a men’s football team registered with the Indian Football Association (IFA). Mirzapur Union, the club she coaches, plays in the fifth division of Calcutta Football League.

“People keep asking me how it feels to coach a men’s side. I have never thought along those lines. I coach a football team and enjoy doing it,” says Anita. It is not her first stint with a men’s team. She had coached Union Sporting, also registered with the IFA, in 1995.

“I was still a player then. I did it because it is mandatory to have some coaching experience to earn a coaching degree from Football Association (FA) in England,” adds Anita.

She played the game at the highest level in her two-decade-long career. She represented India in various tournaments abroad and was the captain of the Bengal team for a season.

Anita did not want to sever connection with the game after hanging up her boots. She completed an International Preliminary Coaching Award Course, conducted by the FA, in 1996 and earned an “A” Licence certificate from UEFA in 1998.

The first chance to prove her mettle as a coach came in 1997 when she was given the reins of the East Bengal junior team. The assignment was brief. Anita was removed the next year.

The setback could not dampen her spirits. She set up Invention Football Coaching Centre with former Maidan player and coach Kanai Sardar. Invention fields a team in the IFA Women’s League every year.

In 2005, Anita became “the only woman in the country” to attend a training session at Deutscher Fussball-Bund (German football association). “Among the 25 trainees at the camp, the only other woman was from Ghana,” claims Anita, who works for Customs.

She is not ready to rest on her laurels. “I dream of the day when I will coach the national women’s team,” she says.