15 Years of the “Diamond” Demolition Completes

Friday, July 13, 2012 Report by Sandipan Chakraborty

Video Courtesy: Ayan Guha

13th July 2012 marks the 15th anniversary of the Historic Derby between two of Indian Football’s greatest rivals, East Bengal Lion's vs Mohun Bagan Tiger's.

Now, what made that Derby Historic?

Well, one man hold’s the answer to this question. Bhaichung Bhutia, the then upcoming superstar of Indian Football scored the first hat-trick in a derby match. The match was tagged to be a cakewalk for Mohun Bagan after their few strings of success, including a 6-0 thrashing of Churchill Brothers in the previous match. They repeated the same score before and were therefore in red hot state and betting against them would have been a jump in the fire. But little did anyone know that their was a man in the opposite ranks waiting to write his name in the pages of history.

Bhaichung Bhutia returning to East Bengal after a year’s demise was in a scorching form and a mimic by Amol Dutta coach of Mohun Bagan terming him as “Chung Chung” played as a petroleum on the fire. Now this derby was also special as it was between two of the greatest footballing personalities of the game. On one end the man carrying the power of “vocal tonic”, P.K. Banerjee and on the other the man with the “diamond” in this hand, Amol Dutta.

The Match was hyped all over the country in such a manner that Doordarshan decided to broadcast the match live from YBK. But as the decision was late, it resulted in a record number of attendances in the stadium. Approximately 1,31,000 supporters arrived to watch the game and cheer their respective sides. As usual Mohun Bagan started the game with the 3-2-3-2 formation tagged as “Diamond” by their coach Amol Dutta. East Bengal started the game with a bang and showed that they were really tonned by the vocal tonic of P.K. Bannerjee. Bhaichung Bhutia scored the hat-trick and East Bengal thrashed Mohun Bagan 4-1.

Now, today after fourteen years, we the fans of East Bengal still remember the great day, which certainly was able to embed itself in the pages of history in Indian Football.