Sevens Samurai: The seven-a-side football circuit is also about survival

The AUP football ground near Broadway is a throwback to those summer playing fields from a decade-and-a-half ago, when ‘gravel’ was an accepted playing surface alongside ‘grass’ and the mythical ‘synthetic’, when kids returned home every day with what elders called ‘scraped paint’ and turned up at school the next day smelling of dettol and neosporin. At dawn, it is covered with litter, some dragged in by the dogs that frequent its vicinity, some remnants from the impromptu drinking sessions that happen around its walls every night. It’s only 6.30 in the morning, but a group of kids are at work, ridding the ground of garbage. They’ve only got 15 minutes before their opposition arrives.

The players are a mismatched bunch, dressed in all sorts of colourful jerseys. Some look 15, some nine. They all have one thing in common. Every single one of them comes from slums that are within a stone’s throw of the ground. Their opposition for the day are a bunch from an even more impoverished slum in Vyasarpadi — the streets of which were practice grounds for India international Dhanpal Ganesh and Nandha Kumar who made the most recent U-23 national squad. They are just two of the 40-50 such teams in the city, centered around slums, giving kids an opportunity to vent their frustrations out on the field and bring in a bit of extra cash.

These teams all have the same story. Kids start out young, mentored by a few older players, who end up goading them into staying in school and out of trouble. A lot of them still fall by the wayside, but some of them come good, playing in lower echleons of the Chennai league, until they get noticed by a department team. Now they are the paternal figures, spending part of their income buying boots for kids, waking up early on weekends to coach their wards.

Suman Raj, the Broadway team’s coach, started out like the players he coaches. He played his way out of trouble, eventually landing a job with Integral Coach Factory. The same goes for Vysarpadi coach Augustine, who was part of the India junior squad alongside the likes of Subrata Paul. For the kids, the likes of Suman and Augustine are role models, much-needed proof that life can, one day, be better.
Solomon, who plays for the Broadway team, is 14. His father ‘doesn’t come home anymore’ and his mother is a sweeper. Seventeen-year-old Upendran’s father runs a roadside eatery that makes around Rs 12,000 a month. He has just finished school and his parents cannot afford college. They need all the hope that they can get.

But more importantly, the likes of Suman and Augustine can teach these players their way around Chennai’s underground Sevens circuit. Every weekend, tournaments, none of them sanctioned by officialdom, are held across the city, most lasting just a day. Winning one could be enough for someone to take care of his family for a week. “That’s how I grew up,” says Suman. “I didn’t have much back then. But these tournaments were a lifeline to many like me.”

Augustine has known 14-year-old Joshua since forever. “He lost his father a long time ago,” he says. “His mother runs a roadside eatery. He goes to school on weekdays and goes to fish on a boat during the weekends. He nearly dropped out of school to work full time, but we convinced him to continue his studies.”

But as soon as he gets a bit older, Joshua will not have to go fishing. Instead, he will be playing Sevens. If his team wins a tournament with a sizeable prize on offer, he stands to earn as much as `3000. For a single day’s work. That’s just under a third of what his mother makes in a month.

***
It’s a Sunday afternoon and an unusual number of vehicles have been parked near a non-descript ground in Pallavaram, a few kilometres from Chennai airport. Fourteen players, half of them dressed in red and the other in blue, are engaged in a feisty game of football. The players range from those who look well into their forties, to kids no older than 15. Not one of them is wearing a shin-pad. “This is not a big tournament,” says Satish Kumar, former India junior player who is now a coach with I-League outfit Chennai City FC. “This was organised in the memory of someone who loved the game. The prize money is only a few thousand.”

The tournament may be a smaller, but the blueprint is essentially the same. There are 16 teams and every game is a knockout, entire tournaments getting over in a day. Attack is turned to defence in seconds and a player who was attempting a goal at one end is clearing off the line at the other, the very next minute. The referee is more or less confined to the centre, justifiably so, for this is the fourth or fifth game he is officiating that day. He remains a mute spectator to the most brutal of tackles and fouls, for in a Sevens game, anything goes. There are few fouls, no offside and hardly any rules.

Much of the same can be said of a seven-a-side game in most places, but in Chennai, Sevens is so much more than football. It is an investment opportunity for those with the means to do so and a chance to make money for players. “Most tournaments offer either a huge amount of cash or something in kind, like a bike or a car as prize,” says Satish. “Players, most of them from slums, cannot afford the entry fee. So someone who can afford it, pays and enters the team under his name. If his team wins, he takes home the prize. Players get paid according to each match they win. If they crash out early, all they have to show for the day’s efforts will be a couple of hundred rupees as allowance and a hearty lunch.”
Mercenaries. Boots for hires, switching allegiances on a weekly basis, putting their bodies on the line so that their master for the day can take home the prize.

***

A chance to earn some much-needed cash, playing football. What could be so bad about that? Nothing at first sight, but the fact remains that once a regular on the Sevens circuit, very few make it out. “There is a whole group of players, who only play Sevens. They never venture out to play 11-a-side football,” says Ingulab Raghunathan, Chennai City’s team manager. “For some, it is a question of adapting to the different needs of the other version. For some, it is money. You will not make much playing the Chennai league. The departmental teams, they will promise appointments.

Until that happens, and it may not, there is every chance you will be playing for them for nothing. A lot of players cannot afford to that.” Chennai’s coaching circle is filled with stories of talented young players who failed to develop after roaming free, devoid of a sense of position, on a Sevens field during their formative years. Or the ones who were reduced to a shadow of their former selves thanks to one bad injury.

Guna is 45 and has been playing Sevens for more than half his life. He is proof of the brutal toll, Sevens can take on the body. His legs are pockmarked with stud-shaped depressions, some of them still blue, his wrist slightly misshapen thanks to a break sustained after an awkward fall. “I’ve even had a broken jaw after a player kicked me on my face,” he says. “In 11s, you run to the physio with a slight niggle. Here you pick yourself up and play.”

But a lot of times, it is impossible to pick yourself up and play. It is then that many of these players stare life in the face, without the ball at their feet or a noisy crowd to egg them on. “Many of these players, they know nothing other than football,” Ingulab says. “They spend their school years playing and neglect studies. Most of them don’t have degrees. Who will employ them once they can no longer play?”
Ingulab himself is an example, though his injury happened outside the field. A bike accident ended his playing career in his early twenties and he could no longer do the only thing he knew. Ingulab though picked himself up, gained a degree and transitioned into the fitness industry. Sagayam, his college-mate at the Madras Christian College hasn’t been as lucky. Once the star of the Sevens arena, he now runs a beef stall and is hardly making both ends meet.

***

Back on the field at Pallavaram, the Lurdhu Memorial tournament is drawing to an uneventful close. For most of the players, it was vital that they escaped unscathed, for next weekend is potentially the biggest payday of the month. A couple of big money tournaments have been scheduled to coincide with the Navaratri holidays. Pretty soon, team owners will be standing in line to recruit the best of them.
One battle won, countless more await.

Bonsai football
Seven-a-side tournaments are held all over the world, although many of them happen outside the bounds of international federation FIFA and their respective accredited bodies...

Each half is of a much shorter duration in these matches. The exact length of a match varies from tournament to tournament

Usually, there are seven players on the pitch with two substitutes waiting by the side. Many tournaments allow unlimited substitutions with players who’ve been replaced once, coming in again

Dimensions of the pitch are also much smaller than what it is for the normal 11-a-side football. There is no fixed size that has to be followed

In India, the Sevens tournaments of Kerala are famous for the huge crowds they attract. More than 300 such tournaments are held in the state every year

Goa too joined the act in 2017, organising a Sevens Premier League. But the Goa Football Association took action against this tournament, suspending 45 players

Hong Kong has organised the HKFC Soccer Sevens since 1999, a tournament that has seen participation from top EPL players including Gabriel Agbonlahor, Glen Johnson, Anton Ferdinand, David Bentley and Marc Albrighton

Seven-a-side football is played in most Para events, including at the Paralympics
Seven-a-side football matches are also played at the youth level in many countries including England

vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com