‘I’m hopeful we would qualify from our pool’

VIKRAM JEET SINGH

Age: 29

Position: Goalkeeper

Teams played: Vijay Club, TATA Football Academy and JK Bank

Employer team: JK Bank

Vikram can rightly be termed as number one goalkeeper of present J&K team. He started his career with Vijay Club Jammu and was later adopted by India’s renowned academy, TATA Football Academy Jamshedpur. At TATA Academy he played from 1995 to 1998. During those years, nobody in JK knew about him, but once he started to play in the state, everyone was puzzled with his talent. He became instant hit among football fans and players. With TATA Academy, Vikram also toured to Norway, Denmark and Germany. It was tour of one month and during that period Academy played matches against the clubs of respective countries. During that tour, Vikram also got offer from the FC Koln Club of Germany but he couldn’t play due to personal reasons. After coming back to J&K, he was offered a job by JK Bank and since then he is an integral part of the team. In state, Vikram has added new dimensions to goalkeeping. He showed new skills and techniques, which he learnt at TATA Academy. As a player, Vikram has represented state on one occasion in under-19 level at Manipur and in under-21 level he played in three national championships at Jammu, Mandiya and Ambala. In Jammu national, J&K was winner and in Mandiya national, Vikram was captain of the team. He has also played in Durand Cup and other national level tournaments like B-Division, third Division, LG Cup and All India Bank Meet. Experts say that Vikram has good capabilities of a goalkeeper. He uses his technique and art of goalkeeping that he had learnt at Tata Academy. As a goalkeeper, he has got good control over ball, excellent reaction time, good gripping and also has got the ability to judge the pace of opposite player which goalkeeper requires in tackling. He is considered as big match player and has always showed his worth in important matches. As a person he is sober, but on field he is aggressive. Vikram has been appointed as vice-captain of the team and he hopes that team will do well in the tournament. “We have talented players in the team and I’m hopeful we would qualify from our pool,” he said.

published in Greater Kashmir on http://greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=20_5_2009&ItemID=6&cat=4