GLORIOUS MOMENTS

IFA Shield prize distribution ceremony at the Raj Bhavan, only once in its history in 1951 when East Bengal won the IFA Shield three years on the trot. The photograph features the then West Bengal Governer Shri K. N. Katzu and the famous Pancha Pandavas of Indian football (Venkatesh, Ahmed Khan, Dhanraj, Appa Rao, Saleh) and also captain of East Bengal team Byomkesh Bose.

The East Bengal Club, which was established on August 1, 1920, made its debut in the 1920 Hercules Cup, a seven-a-side competition, which it won. The Club then entered the Indian Foot Ball Association (IFA) league's Second Division and immediately announced its arrival by finishing third.
In 1924, East Bengal became joint champions of the Second Division with Cameroon B.
In 1925, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan clashed for the first time and East Bengal won 1-0. In the return match, Mohun Bagan avenged itself. Even today, 78 years later, this rivalry persists.
In 1942, East Bengal club secured its first league triumph, and the following year it won the IFA Shield. The club has never looked back since. In 1945 it won both the First Division league and the IFA Shield. The same year, the team thrashed BCCI Railways 11-0 in a Rovers Cup tie, the highest ever victory margin in its history. In the same match East Bengal's legendary Anglo-Burmese centre-forward Pagsley scored eight goals, establishing a record for the number of goals scored by an individual in a match. The following year, in the IFA Shield, East Bengal's S. Nayar established another record by scoring 36 goals, which still remains unbroken.
In 1951, East Bengal became the first Indian team to win the IFA Shield three times in a row (1949 to 1951). For this achievement, the English FA annual almanac of 1951-52 adjudged East Bengal the best Indian soccer club. Following this, on invitation, East Bengal became the first Indian football team to tour the Soviet Union and Romania. The club also has one of the best records of good performance against foreign teams. In 1948, East Bengal defeated the Chinese Olympic XI 2-0; in 1951, it was the Swedish FC Gothenburg that lost, 0-1; and in 1956, the Chinese Olympic XI lost again, 1-3. One of the most outstanding achievements of East Bengal was its 1-0 victory over PAS Club of Iran in the 1970 IFA Shield final. At the end of the match, over 80,000 fans of East Bengal lit up Eden Gardens by holding up flaming torches high over their heads. This was a glorious time for East Bengal, when it won the Calcutta football league for a record six times in a row, from 1970 to 1975.

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A Journey Through The Ages

Nearly ninety one years ago, a rich industrialist protested against petty jingoism – and thus a football club was born. Today, that uncertain toddler towers above all in India’s football landscape.

As Ramchandra Guha points out in several of his works, the Bengali mindset, with its pronounced proclivity towards subtler things in life, was expected to be inclined towards cricket in the pre-independence era. However, cricket’s appeal was largely limited to the Bengali aristocrats of Calcutta. For the common man, the game that ignited his imagination was always football. Football was a proxy for the war against the British, an idea that was sparked off by Mohun Bagan's historic success in the 1911 I.F.A. Shield final against their mighty British opponents. 

Expectedly, the native Indians did not enjoy the same privileges as the British, both within and outside the football arena.

The I.F.A. Governing body permitted only two Indian clubs in the First Division of the Calcutta League. Indian clubs like Kumartuli were denied promotion in spite of triumphing in the Second Division. The other significant tournaments in Bengal were Coochbehar Cup and the Trades Cup, of which the former played a significant role in the formation of East Bengal Club.

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