Tamil Nadu   

Soccer in the Nilgiris gets a shot in the arm

Udhagamandalam: A major development on the sports front has sent spirits soaring among the sports loving people of this hill station in general and the football fraternity in particular.

News was received by the Nilgiris District Football Association (NDFA) late on Friday that two of its members had been selected to represent India in the Under-19 football tournament for the Asia Cup at Iran.

The duo who had made the district proud were striker C.S. Sabeeth (19), son of a Armed Reserve Head Constable Sathyan, and centre half M. Pradeep, son of Mohanraj of Bearhatty.

According to the secretary, NDFA, Raman Raghunath, while the former had completed his school education at Government Higher Secondary School here and joined the Sethu Engineering College, Madurai, the latter studied at the Saint Joseph’s Higher Secondary School here before moving to Loyola College, Chennai.

With their performance having been consistently good, they were chosen for an international conditioning camp in Germany during October. Stating that the honour bestowed on the youth was marked by the distribution of sweets at the Breeks-HADP Open Air stadium here, Mr. Raghunath said that it had come as a shot in the arm to the NDFA which has been languishing for long due to want of attention and lack of sufficient funds. He hoped that the entry of the duo into the world of big time football would restore the game in this hill station to its pristine glory. They will play their first game in Iran on November 6.

Adverting to an old saying, ‘what baseball is to the Americans, football is to the citizens of the Nilgiris.’ Long time fans of the game told The Hindu that unfortunately the globe’s most popular game was now not the kind of crowd puller it used to be until about a decade ago in this hill station.

The achievement of Sabeeth and Pradeep should be used as props to help the game move up in the popularity ratings. The need of the hour was magnanimous sponsors.

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