Mymensingh's football in a state of disarray
Female footballers like Marzia, Maria Manda, Tahura Khatun, Sanjida Akter and many others have now become household names after their back-to-back triumphs in the AFC U-14 Regional Girls' Championship. However, while those girls from Kalsindur under the Dhobaura Upazila of Mymensingh have brought many plaudits, men's football in the district has been lingering in a dismal state.
A football-crazy man like Mofizur Rahman, popularly known as Mofiz Sir, groomed players like Marzia, Maria and Sanjida at the grassroots level and elevated them to the national fold, but there is hardly any self-driven person like Mofiz in downtown Mymensingh to prepare players and bring back the glory days when a united Mymensingh (comprising Jamalpur, Netrokona, Sherpur, Tangail and Kishorganj) became runners-up at a national level tournament before 1980 and had players from the region such as Shamsul Alam Manju, Manwar Hossain Nannu and Abdul Hamid who donned the national colours.
Though the region has a tradition of producing cricketers such as Ram Chanda Goala, Saiful Islam, Mahbubul Alam Selim, Jakir Hossain, Mahmudullah Riyad, Shuvagoto Hom and Mosaddek Hossain among others, it has failed to produce quality footballers who can play in the country's top-flight.
The region once boasted 20 footballers such as Kibria, Haroon, Babul, Chalim, Razzak and Yeamin who would ply their trade in the then Dhaka First Division Football League in the '80s, but it has now been reduced to a one-man show with Team BJMC's Jakir Hossain Jiku the only player representing Mymensingh in the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League.
Morsalin Mustaque, one of local coaches and the honoury president of Boikalin KC, discussed the state of Mymensingh football.
“Footballers are not coming from well-off families and having no educated coaches is one of big reasons we do not produce good footballers,” said Mustaque.
The inconsistency of holding the district league is another reason which distracts people from football as the District Football Association (DFA) in Mymensingh only held the league thrice since its in 2008.
“After being elected president, we held the league in the past two seasons with the participation of 12 teams and we are getting good response from the spectators. However, it is true that before the formation of DFA, the league was held regularly under the District Sports Association,” said DFA president Omar Hayhat Khan yesterday.
“I have seen some footballers with potential in the league but they have no platform to show their worth in front of organisers or coaches of the Dhaka clubs,” said Khan, who once played in the Dhaka First Division, adding that financial constraints did not allow the DFA to run the programme round the year.