2012 Mohun Bagan Day celebrations

Asia's oldest football club Kolkata's Mohun Bagan AC celebrated their Mohun Bagan Day yesterday across the day with a function at the Netaji Indoor Stadium being the highlight. The guest of honour at the function was Dutch legend Ruud Gullit, who was given a warm welcome by the over 5,000 Bagan fans at the venue.

July 29 is celebrated each year as it was on that day in 1911 that Mohun Bagan AC became the first Indian team to beat a team of the British to lift the IFA Shield trophy.

Besides being felicitated Ruud Gullit also unveiled the new Mohun Bagan jersey designed by renowned singer Babul Supriyo which was handed to team players Syed Rahim Nabi and Tolgay Ozbey.

This years Mohun Bagan Ratna was given to the late Jarnail Singh, one of India's best-ever defenders. The award was accepted by Jarnail's three daughters - Kulwinder Kaur, Jaswinder Kaur and Narinder Kaur - from Mohun Bagan president Swapan Sadhan Bose.

Other felicitations were of the Nursery League team of Mohun Bagan, the Bengal state cricket team besides the Mohun Bagan cricket team, which won four out of the five local tournaments under the Cricket Association of Bengal in the last season.

The function ended with performances from singers Babul Supriyo and Usha Uthup after it had started with Rabindra Sangeet by Jayati Chakraborty.


Individual Awards winners

'Sailen Manna Memorial Award' for Best Sportsperson of the Club 2011/12 - Laxmi Ratan Shukla (Cricketer)

'Karuna Shankar Bhattacharjee Award' for Best Footballer 2011/12 - Syed Rahim Nabi

'Dhiren Dey Memorial Award' for Best Cricketer 2011/12 - Debabrata Das

Award for Trainee with highest attendance in Kolkata Goalz tournament - Dilshad Rehmani

Ruud Gullit: Supports Koevermans as India coach!

Former Dutch international captain and AC Milan star Ruud Gullit is in Kolkata and when asked about his former Oranje team mate Wim Koevermans, who has been appointed as Team India coach, he was in full support of Wim.

"I think Indian football is in good hands. The most important for these coaches is to develop youth football because that is where it all starts. It's important to have training facilities, the pitches," Ruud Gullit said.

"It is not about how many tricks a budding talent knows. It is more about how much he knows about the game, how much he understands football. The approach should be direct, it should be either about scoring goals or saving them," Gullit, himself a coach and TV expert, explained.

52 year old Wim Koevermans had been part of the Netherlands team which had won the 1988 European Championship in Germany under then captain Ruud Gullit.

And Gullit understands the problems that a large country like India faces in developing its football. Comparing it to the Netherlands he said, "Every club there has an amateur team and each team has about three or four pitches. For this reason, every kid has got the opportunity to play in the pitches."

"So you have to first think of building pitches, the artificial ones because of the weather," Gullit added.