It is eight in the evening. The dusty, brightly lit Mohammed Hussein playground (formerly YMCA ground) is abuzz with boys in shorts and shoes running feverishly, trying to trick the opponents for a clever, quick hit. Sweating profusely, a lanky lad kicks the ball which, grazing past the goalkeeper, bounces into the goalpost.
Loud cheers rise from the stands, filling the night sky. If the residents in the skyscrapers surrounding the maidan feel a bit inconvenienced due to the nocturnal ‘test of the nerves’ nearby, they don’t complain.
Welcome to the
Madanpura Football League (
MFL) being played between May3—May8. It has the youngsters and
football loving seniors from Madanpura, Kalapani, Agripada and Nagpada areas hooked. One of the biggest Muslim ghettos in the city, Madanpura, with its creaky infrastructure, epitomizes urban nightmare. Yet this bursting at the seams locality has nurtured in the locals an abiding love for football. So much so that football star, ‘Sikkimese Sniper’ Bhaichung Bhutia, after a visit here once called it “India’s Brazil.”
Well, Bhutia might have exaggerated but football fever does grip
Madanpura like almost no locality in the city. MFL is aimed to “inflame” that fever, ignite the somehow dormant passion and help harness many a talent.
“Madanpura is a hub of footballers. It has sent several players to our national team and many footballing heroes have brought laurels to the country and the city,” explains local corporator
Rais Shaikh. Shaikh has been instrumental in organizing the MFL where 16 clubs, including Bombay Muslims, Rabbani Sports, Twinkle Star Sports, Mominpura Sports Club, are participating.
Yusuf Ansari was a goalkeeper for India team between1990-1997. He now coaches and is employed with Air India. “I played in the qualifying round in the 1990 Olympic and the pre-quarter final in the 1993 World Cup,” informs Ansari.
“In the 1990s there were three players from Madanpura—Aqeel Ansari, Tauseef Jamal and myself—who played for India. It is football which has given me everything. And this dusty ground is our nursery,” says Ansari who has just returned from Jammu and Kashmir where efforts are being made to dissuade disaffected youths from becoming stone pelters. They are being lured to the sports so as to wean them away from militancy. Ansari says that after he reached J & K to coach the boys he found that one Majid had become a militant.
“I was asked to send out a message through social media networks to cajole him back to the football field. Fortunately he quit militancy and returned to the mainstream,” he says.
Stories of how football has helped Madanpura youths find financial security with jobs in railways, banks and other public and private sectors abound. When caravans of Muslims, mainly weavers, left towns like Meerut, Mirzapur, Faizabad in the aftermath of the post-1857 oppression by the British, one group settled in Madanpura.
It supplied workers to several textile mills which dotted the Parel--Mumbai Central belt. The British built bungalows around an open ground for their officers. The nearby YMCA was tasked to maintain the ground. Subsequently, the BMC took over the maidan’s management and later allowed it to be named after Mohammed Hussein, a local football hero.
“Football helps stop many boys from becoming druggies and joining crime. If the infrastructure is improved and corporate sponsorships are pumped in, I am sure Madanpura will produce more football champions,” says Ahmed Iqbal whose son Sadaan (19) is playing in the league. Businessman Hafeez Reshamwala is planning to start a football academy for these reasons. “Soon the academy will come up and the dream of putting Madanpura on India’s football map will be realized,” he says.