Shimla-the birthplace of the Durand Cup and the Indian Air Force ...

Playing ball
The Bridge course was actually a big curse. It is no fun to
start running 10 km at 5 pm even before the sun has set
and then to come back and play football for another 90
minutes. But Mr Pendred, our football coach (Football
Blue from Oxford University, and also our English teacher ) was
adamant, “you have got to build up endurance and stamina if you
want to be a football player”.
In one of these runs I was following NJ Nair of 38th NDA Course
… after a kilometer, I looked down to avoid stepping on a frog (we
ran along a stream next to paddy fields). By the time I looked up
NJ was no longer there and I was seeing the back of Joseph George
and still ahead...Pendred. As we reached back to the school
football grounds, I once again saw NJ in front of me. I had known
him for an academic genious, winning the best student trophy(a
huge brass nilavilakku - a peacock lamp) year after year. But this
latest trick of vanishing and reappearing fascinated me.
On one of these bridge course runs, Pendred was in front, pushing
himself hard with only him in front of me. As we neared the
36 July 2011 purple beret
Maj (Retd) Viswanath Madhav Rajan is 40th NDA
course and currently based in Bangalore
football ground I told myself, can I kick in for a final push to first
position? I saw myself overtaking and finishing first, my name on
the Notice Board looked good. That was the beginning of my stints
in the school football team. For years Malayalees believed that the
football looked best when it was far up in the sky and anyone who
could kick the ball the highest was a terrific footballer.
Then came Pendred and completely changed our notions of good
football..anyone kicking the ball high into the air would be sent
on a punishment run of two rounds of the football field. A week of
this new brand of football and the footballing kazhaks (cadets of
the Sainik School Kazhakootam) started playing the ground level
passing game, the Brazilians play minus of course their flair. It was
a good start. Suresh Bhaskar’s sharp ground pass used to reach his
uncle Harindran’s feet .. one tackle to befuddle a defender and in
the next step, he used to send the ball curling towards the net.
Col Somaiah, our Principal’s elder son became an exponent of
precision ground passing in the “D”- a selfless act.
We crushed the pretensions of Kaniyapuram high school in their
own grounds when Gopalakrishna Pillay beat their goal keeper like
the German, Klose. But we were put into our place in the hierarchy
by the Kerala State Team. They crashed the ball into our nets from
outside the D, beating G.R Mohan hands up and legs down.
I took Pendred’s lessons to the Army...never lost a football match
I captained whether playing for the Battalion, Brigade, Division
or Northern Command. George Best from England, Platini from
France and Johan Cruyff of Holland provided inspiration from
across the seas.
I took my football team to a morning 10 km run to build stamina
and endurance, as my teacher Mr Pendred had instructed. We did
push ups, sit ups, and rope to strengthen our upper torso, and I
coached the team meticulously, in every art of footballing skills
like dribbling, tackling, heading, passing, creating spaces, running
into open spaces, defending fiercely, corner kicks, penalty kicks
I made a chart that is displayed on the following page and stuck to
it like glue .. resulting in victory after victory.