Watching the red-and-gold play will shortly be possible even if you’re in Pune, Mumbai or Bangalore. The East Bengal club (I dislike using the word ‘Kingfisher’ before the name of my favorite club) is soon going to start football merchandising in major Indian cities holding the fingers of US-based Indthalia Corp.
There will be dedicated outlets – to be called East Bengal Indthalia Fan Zones – where a range of mementos and collectibles like logo-embossed caps to coffee mugs to what not will be sold.
The icing on the cake is of course the plan to show direct telecast of East Bengal matches on giant screens whatever the tourney. This means the fans can see the matches in groups in faraway cities rekindling the camaraderie one sees on the field.
East Bengal’s plans come close on the heels of near similar plan of the other football giant, Mohun Bagan. The latter has already identified Baggu – tiger headed man – as its mascot. In the current Calcutta Football League matches that Mohun Bagan is playing, several ‘Baggus’ dot the field dancing and swaying to fans’ applause.
Seems the idea of entertaining fans has come from the FIFA via AIFF and IFA. The practice is widely prevalent in virtually all football loving nations. There even songs are created and sung in the field in support of club teams and also when national teams play.
It’s not yet a fever, but if the going gets good, may be in the not-too-distant future we’ll have quite a few ‘national’ songs for my favorite club, East Bengal.
[Collated from HT, Aug 5]
East Bengal fans in Singapore – here, there, everywhere!
[Image source]
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