Love For Football:-

My Childhood was spent playing and dreaming about football. The football dream started when we moved to Dehradun from Mysore (now known as Mysuru). In Dehradun, just in front of my house there was a play ground. I saw kids playing football there. That was my first sight of the game, and as the saying goes "Love at First Sight". I was just in love with the game.

Sometimes the place you live changes your habits and your likings, same happened to me, moving from Mysore to Dehradun introduced me to football and gave me my first passion.
Back in Mysore we played on the streets, mostly cricket. At Mysore we also played some games played by children of that era, like Pithu, Stapoo, Bandi, hide and seek etc, but Dehradun introduced me to football.
Back in that era, Dehradun was known for some great players who played for various well known clubs. People were very fond of football and the youth played football with great passion and commitment. The fad for football in the city propelled me to play football.

I started playing football both at school and at home. Gradually I started playing well. We used to play football in lunch breaks, games period, any free period and then in the evenings. 
Irrespective of the weather, be it the harsh winters or the down pouring monsoons or the summers we always played football.
In-fact playing football in the rains was so much fun, we would get completely drenched and covered all over in mud. The weeds that grew in the monsoon will stick to the socks and completely wrap them with thorn-like protuberances. I remember removing these weeds from the socks was such a pain.

My father bought us a football. It kind of helped me play football even inside my home. My complete day went in playing, talking or dreaming about football.
In those days it was a fad collecting cards of footballing legends. These cards came free with World Cup chewing gum. I had collected loads of them. These cards having photographs of footballing legends were my first exposure to the game's greats. Besides the cards I had collected cut outs of footballers and matches from sports magazines. In-fact the cut-outs were gifted to me by my cousin's friend whose house I had visited once. He was also an avid fan of football and shared some cut-outs with me from his exhaustive collection of cut-outs. Soon I realized that Dehradun was full of football lovers. You could talks about football at stretch with friends and likeminded people.

I had classmates who played good football. We could beat football teams from classes 3-4 years senior to us. I used to day dream of creating a club football team of my classmates who played good football. Sometimes I used to dream at night, where I dreamt of  having a football match between my team (of my classmates) and a team of footballing legends like Pele, Diego Maradona, Ruud Gullit, Roberto Baggio, Salvatore Schilaci, Rene Higuita etc. In my dreams we used to beat the team of the legends. I remember the Triumph of beating the team of legends would wake me up. I would always that someday this dream comes true.

I played right winger or right forward. I was good at these positions. I represented my school as well at the Zonal meet. This was my first exposure to other football teams in Dehradun.

I remember I was told about my selection just a day before the Zonal meet. I was also told that it was mandatory to play in football boots at the zonal meet. I remember I did not have the football boots (which we colloquially called 'kits') at that point of time. I did not have time to buy kits as I was told about the selection just a day before the Zonal meet, hence I borrowed it from one of the guys who use to play with me in the evening. The boots did not fit me well as they were one or two size bigger than my foot size. To fit the boot I had tightened the laces to the fullest and stuffed some leaves in between the space of my foot and the boot. Actually I did not wanted to play with the ill fitting boots but at the Zonal meet it was mandatory to play in kits. Also I saw everybody else playing in proper footballing attire having proper boots, shin guard, proper socks etc. Hence I had to play with the ill fitting boots.

At the Zonal meet I was not given the opportunity to play at my position and asked to play in midfield. I failed to impress the coaches then as the position I was playing did not suit my natural game also my boot kept slipping out of my foot. I wish I had proper boots, shin guards, socks etc and was allowed to play at my natural position. Anyhow I did not make it to the Dehradun Team, which I still regret.

I kept playing football. After school I played football at my college and my corporate workplace as well. From my workplace I got an opportunity to work at London. I started playing football in the corporate footballing circuit there. I remember back then I impressed Londoners as well with my skills. Just before our Team's visit to Amsterdam for inter company tournament I had to return back to India. Hence I missed a chance to play in the European Corporate Circuit.

In my second and third visit to London, I kept playing football. I remember I would get into high end sports stores and get tempted to buy high quality kits, shin guards socks, proper jersey etc, but eventually end up abandoning the idea.

Although I haven't played football for a long time but I still get dreams of playing football in complete footballing attire with the footballing legends of my time...