PK personified sporting spirit

In the death of Pradip Kumar Banerjee India has lost one of its greatest football players and its finest representative of the spirit of sport, which included passing on his skills and his sporting acumen to whole new generations. Titles like the “Indian footballer of the millennium” and the Fifa order of merit represented a thoroughly deserved honour for one who embodied sportsmanship.

A robust right-winger in the old 5-3-2 formation, his athletic runs and thundering drives towards goal were the stuff of legend. He played during India’s golden soccer era when Asian titles were not out of each and Olympic ambitions were not outrageous pipedreams. There were many with him like Chuni Goswami and T. Balram who made teamwork possible with talent and bonding.

The scoring of the equaliser against France in the Rome Olympics was a precursor to his being the most dynamic player in the gold medal-winning team at the Asian Games in Jakarta in 1962. The years between the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne and the Merdeka tournament of 1965 were P.K.’s golden years during which he scored 15 goals for the national team. The burden of injuries was to force him into retirement from the maidans of Kolkata, but coaching was to prove as much his metier as much as soccer skills.

An amiable personality well grounded in fair play, P.K. became a legend as a coach, first in the maidan with East Bengal and then Mohun Bagan, which he managed while the club achieved its first-ever triple crown and Eastern Railway. He had a simple and forthright style of communicating that endeared him to a host of talented youngsters.

His presence at international events in Kolkata, including cricket at the Eden Gardens, was seen as his endorsement of sport in its more modern eras. ”Pkda” (83) lived to see a professional revolution come about in Indian soccer with the ISL as well as the rise of India in the rankings from the lowly 200+ it had once slipped to onto 108.