East Bengal Lions pumps in five past Mohun Bagan Tigers in Bangalore

Sunday, May 27,2012 Report by Amartya Dasgupta

Picture by : Gourav Mukherjee

It was a special Sunday. All over Bengal this day is celebrated as "Jamai Sasti". But it was more special and different here in Bangalore. Today was the season's first Fans' DERBY between the supporters of two bitter rivals East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. The match was organized jointly by EBRP and Mohun Bagan Fans. The ground was booked in Sarjapur next to the Wipro office near the ring road. The game started off at 5.30PM IST.

As usual, a derby means some high intensity clash and the atmosphere was no different here. The East Bengal fans were present in the field with the blazing red and gold jersey and flags. But unfortunately the Bagan fans (except one) couldn't even manage to have a jersey, better forget about the flag. Before the start of the match itself a controversy was created by the Bagan team as they opposed fielding of a player Rohit as he is from Orissa. We showed the documents that he is a member of EBRP (Membership Number: BLR 17-2012-13) after which they were convinced. Eventually Rohit finished with a hattrick in the end with a total of 4 goals to his tally.

From the start East Bengal Fans were at business. Beautiful passes and crosses were supplied to the forwards by Sukanta. He really played the pivotal role in the midfield with lots of supplies to the top. The first goal came on the 6th minute when Arijit ran from the left wing dribbling two players and banged the target with a low right footed shot. Just after this East Bengal was again pretty close but chances were wasted by Rohit and Suman. But soon after that East Bengal started constant attacking from the wings with beautiful runs by Suman and Rounak. In the mean time Tuhin, the player who was really taking all the load in Mohun Bagan defence got seriously injured by twisting his knee and was removed. Immediately, two more goals were added by Rohit before the new player could settle in. Both the assists were efforts of Raunak and Suman. These two boys were awesome. After 10th minute Mohun Bagan showed some understanding and started attacking. They also had a 1 on 1 chance but was brilliantly saved by Abhijit. The first half ended in 3-0 score.

The start of the second half saw few substitutions. East Bengal’s pace in the game went slow. But a brilliant cross i.e. a typical "mapa shot" was placed by Sukanta to Rohit and the latter just placed an awesome header to complete his hattrick. And just after that from a defensive error he increased his number of goals to 4. A beautiful header by Raunak went inches over the post. It was one of the best acrobatic header of the match. Eventually East Bengal won the match 5-0 and it was quite deservingly.
   
The man of the match Rohit and he was presented a prize money of Rs. 500 /- by the EBRP members. The prize was presented by Shaibal da one of our elder members in EBRP Bangalore.
 
The match ended in a good taste and all the fans of both the teams had a nice time after the match. Also we decided we should have these kind of matches once every month.

Bloopers:

Now time of some bloopers. Referee Mr. Kaushik Banerjee had a wonderful time out and watching him we truely remembered the famous Rabi Ghosh of Dhanni Meye :-). Susmit  figured out this awesome similarity :-) It was really hillarious watching him and both the teams really enjoyed his refeering. He had a whistle in his hand and most of the time blew it only when players requested. He blew it on his own only once when the match ended. The ending whistle generally is a long one, but in this case it was the smallest ever whistle sound blown!! The ball was with a Mohunbagan player. Astonished he asked "Ei ta kiser basi" then he understood "Oh! match sesh bujhi" :-)



East Bengal Team (LIONS) : Abhijit Roy(GK) Defense:- Arijit, Biswajit Pal. Mid-Fielder:- Suman,  Sukanta, Rounak Forward:- Rohit Reserve Bench:- Rahul Majumdar, Kinjal



Mohun Bagan Team (TIGERS) : Debargha, Kaustav, Ayusmaan, Somtirtha, Topobrata, Daipanyan, Dev, Tuhin