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Old girls do the trick

For Kerala, experience won over youth at the recent National Women's Football Championship, observes STAN RAYAN

VICTORY SMILES The Kerala women's football team with the runner-up trophy

Around this time last year, when Kerala played the National Women's Football Championship in Imphal, the team had a lot of bright, young faces. The Kerala

Football Association was trying out many juniors and many old names who had served the State for more than a decade, had been dropped.

Things, however, were not so bright on the field. In fact, the youngsters looked lost as they were whipped 5-0 by Bengal in the semifinals.

This year, the old girls were brought back. And they did the trick, finishing runner-up to Manipur in the Senior Nationals in Bhilai the other day. Kerala had won the Senior National a couple of times before but the Bhilai show was the State's best showing after the All India Football Federation took the women's game under its wing in 1992.

"Four of our players this time were above 30, a couple of them even close to 35. And three of them are married," said the coach V. A. Narayana Menon who was handling women footballers for the first time. "But our players were outstanding. It was virtually a Seena show in the midfield while Sreelatha stood out in the defence. And goalkeeper Preetha Kumari was tested only in the final."

Kerala lost to defending champion Manipur, virtually the Indian team with many internationals, 2-0 in the final. It defeated Goa by a lone goal in the semifinals and in the quarterfinal league earlier, the team blanked Jharkhand and Chattisgarh by identical 4-0 margins.

Leading from the front

Angel Adolfes, the captain from the State capital, led from the front, scoring seven of the team's nine goals in the championship. Angel, who was playing her 13th Nationals, came up with hat-tricks in both the league games and also struck the match-winner in the semifinals.

"I won the top scorer's trophy," said the jubilant 27-year-old, who was adjudged the State's best footballer last year by the Kerala Football

Association. The top scorer's title was also a nice gift for Angel who got married four months ago.

People living in coastal areas are built tough. They make good footballers.

State Bank of Travancore's Sylvester Ignatious, the former Kerala captain, is a classic case. And Angel, the daughter of a fisherman living close to the beach near the Thiruvananthapuram airport, is another gem from the area.

With Kerala men, the defending champions, crashing out of the Santosh Trophy semifinals a few months ago at home in Kochi, the women's performance brought some cheer to the State.

Ekendra Singh, the coach of the Manipur team, which made its exit under strange circumstances from the Kochi Santosh Trophy, was also the coach of the Manipur women's team. So some of the girls Kerala expected the final to turn aggressive, even ugly.

"Ekendra had predicted that Manipur would have it easy against Kerala. And when we held the champion goalless for more than 75 minutes in the 80-minute encounter, he got very desperate. He started shouting at his girls," said the Kerala coach Narayana Menon, also a lecturer at the Sri Vivekananda College, in Kunnamkulam.

The final

Manipur got their first goal through a penalty in the 78th minute and the other came in the dying seconds of the game. "After the final, Ekendra hugged me and said that he had never seen Kerala playing so well in the last 12 years," said Narayana Menon.

Manipur, like many other North-Eastern States, plays an attacking game, a rough and tough brand of football. And how did Kerala counter this, without many young and sturdy legs?

Captain Angel probably had the answer when she said, "Like many others in the team, I don't have a job. We desperately need a decent job and we played our hearts out at the National."

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