Popularity of football in India is on the rise and Indian girls are eager to jump on the ship. Abid Khan reports from Srinagar on a unique football tournament exclusively for girls…..
Abid Khan
The girls of Srinagar district have created history by participating in the first ever Inter District girl's football tournament that has kicked off at the Bakshi Stadium on Friday in which eight district teams from the Kashmir province participated. This was the first ever girls’ Under-19 football to be organized in the valley. Last year girls from J&K participated for the first time in the national school football tournament, the girls from Kashmir comprising of only Srinagar based girls. Taking clue from that, the Directorate of Youth Services and Sports department this year decided to organize a football tournament for girls. Setting standards for the rest of the districts, girls from Srinagar were the first to start playing football. The District Srinagar Youth Services and Sports Department first organized a month long coaching camp for the selected girls in order to prepare them for the match between Kargil girls and Srinagar girls. But as the Government was dissolved the match too was abandoned. Now as the dates for the Inter District tournament were announced, the same 20 selected girls, who have already learned almost all the basic skills of football, had been training at the Biscoe School ground daily from July 26 under the guidance of Youth Services and Sports department coach Mushtaq Ahmad Dar. Giving details about the camp Mushtaq said,"It is second time that I am training these girls. This time it is easy as compared to the first instance. That time girls the did not even how many players there are in a team, what the penalty area is and all the other related basic points. I had to teach them both theoretically and practically. First I taught them all the rules of the game and after that they started to play." Mushtaq says that it was only because of the dedication and will of these girls that they are playing football today, "It was never easy to make them play football but from very first moment of the coaching all the girls were interested in it. They wanted to play football and that made things easy for them. Outside the field they exchange jokes with each other but once they are on the field things become serious that shows how seriously these girls take football.” One of the participants, Farhana Fareed of Girls Higher Secondary School Kothi Bagh, said,"I started to play football last year and represented my state in National School Games. At the time I knew nothing about football and had seen it only on television. But once I understood the rules and other things involved it I started to like it. If I don't play it for few days I start to feel awkward." Another participant, Usha, gives credit to coach Mushtaq,"I would have never imagined that I would be playing but it is all because of coach Mushtaq who motivated not only me but all of us. At times he was bit harsh on us but most of the time he treated us with softness. He always said to us that we should be focused the job that is given to us on a particular day and it is because of that we learnt playing football." The team was made up of these players: Bisma Ali, Geetu Thapa, Farhan Farid, Nazima Hassan, Rukhsana, Sozya, Nusrat, Nuzhat Hamid, Anjum, Nuzhat, Vidya, Usha, Zeenat, Naomi Mushtaq Ahmad (coach).
published in goal .com on august-6-2009 link : http://www.goal.com/en-india/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=807698
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