Debashish Roy : A SORBID and a CANDID example of TIGER beating it’s DEATH by the scruff of everything
There are some who are simply bestowed with undue problems
to haunt them and they always beat those by their determination and courage
Ofcourse the GOD also are with them in those momemt .
Football is a game for the poor played by the impoverish
. This game makes the man a SOUL and not a man for ALL SEASON It is said that whatever game you play if you have not
played the game of football you have not and never been a sportsman at all
Football is a game which sparks everything in terms of a sports that a man
could have or even a women and that they exhibit in the game and in their human
life everyday One such man is Debashish Roy who NEVER got a chance to play for
India but he played for the Junior India team in 1976 and played for all the
big three clubs at Bengal
His initial days and
forays in football , his family background
He was born at Karimnagar at assam to a family which had
three sisters besie him The eldest of the sister was a School teacher Since she
was educated and doing a honourable job the family wanted him to do his
education in the best possible manner . His father use to run a small petty
shop to maintain his family The business was OK for him to maintain his family
but it was not that good to provide extravaganza Hence his father would always
peg him to study well and further take up the business This coot was NOT
interested in business. He told his father that he wanted to become a footballer
and that ws his only choice and the goal of his life“ SPORTSMANSHIP AND FOOTBALL WILL GIVE YOU PITTANCE ” was the reply
the father always would tell him
His meteoric rise in
Assam’s Football
From Karimnagar at Assam to Gauhati, from there to the All
Assam School Boys’ for the National School football championship then, from
there to the state junior team in football and from there to the Junior India
Football tournament at Pyong yang at North Korea along with Bhaskar Ganguly,
Manoranjan Bhattacharjee, Compton Dutta, Parminder Singh , Brahmanana Salwankar
and some more who later went on to play for India with pride HE WAS
CHOSEN AS THE VICE CAPTAIN OF THAT FOOTBALL SQUAD Thus began his rise in
football
Back home he was there in the Ist year of his College for
his studies He went onto captain the
Gauhati University in the Ashutosh Memorial University football
championship and in the finals they defeated Kolkatta Univeristy by 5-0 That
was the time when he started cornering all the hogs and the limelight
TRAGIC : THE FIRST OF
IT’S KIND
The family was growing in dimension and it’s perimeter was
not flexed to being spending a little on anything The childrens started
stepping into the College and some started getting the orders from the family
that BE PREPARED The marriage time also has come All these would require
expenditure and the Father beside running his shop to maintain his family also
started to add some extra income to his kitty and one such was supplying the
LABOURERS to the builders and making some extra buck out of the same
The mother of that family would everyday carry the tiffin of
the Father to the sites where he would be with the labourers She would handle
the tiffin carrier and then would walk all the way back home to fend the house
One fine day when the mother ook the tiffin and stood under the building where
the Father was taking a stock of the job and the labourer all of a sudden that
entire building collapsed and the mother
went into the debris and from there to the world where one goes not to come
back at any moment thereafter
Many were admitted to the hospital for recuperation as the
father also ws. He could come back to his home but when he heard that his wife
has passed away he could not bear that SHOCK and LOSS He struggled for many a
days to live heartedly but at last the grief of losing his wife in that manner
gave it and that was that THE FAMILY WAS
UNDER THE SHACKLES OF UNCERTAINITY ABOUT THEIR FUTURE
First Move as a
Professional footballer
Finding it very HARD to bear the loss somehow Debashish came
back to sense. Now the entire charge of the family fell upon the sister who was
a School teacher but was drawing a very meagre salary and Debashish who was
unemployed He had to give his studies He by then had passed the ist year of his
BA studies but had to give the studies away
A Club from Gauhati approached him and they registered him a
footballer of the club with the only benefit that the club would give him to
eat a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner everyday with a roof over the head That
was in 1977 and he remained with them until April 1978 . In April 1978 one of
his coach who coached him said him- MOVE
TO KOLKATTA YOU WILL BE A BETTER HUMAN BEING AND A BETTER FOOTBALLER PLAYING
FOR INDIA AND THOSE REPUTED CLUB
OK- he replied but how do I go there I have no money to go
there and place my feet over there. Some Samaritan gave him some money to move
to Kolkatta with the assurance that he would pay them the LOAN received when
his state of affair would be fine and good He made all arrangement to move to
Kolkatta While leaving he took some of his certificates and a picture of that
1976 Junior India football team of which he was the Vice captain of that team
DISASTER AWAITED HIM
: HE WAS IN THE JAIL FOR TWO NIGHTS
Boarding the train for Kolkatta in 1978 in a unreserved
compartment he met disaster The back pocket which hld his booty and the ticket
was picked off beautifully by some EXPERT in this field and when the TT asked
him for his ticket he was POINT BLANK He was put under the railway Police first
and from there to the City Police in between Kolkatta and New jalpaiguri. His
only luck was that he was in Bengal by that time where FOOTBALL is a RELIGION
and FOOTBALLERS are the GOD for everything
His encounter with the POLICE saw him being psushed to the
jail for not having the tickets then but then ARRIVED LUCK in a way The Local Police Station Officer himself was
a Policeman who had played Football for the Kolkatta City Police team in the
early sixties and was appointed as a Policeman He got that job in the Sports
Quota then and now he was a Poloiceman in this area Because of football that
Policeman took a pity on him and asked him to prove his worth as a footballer
if he could He took out that pictures and some certificates that he was conferred
with in football That picture with Bhaskar Ganguly and Manoranjan Bhatacharjee
with him being the Vice captain of the indian Football team for that Pyangyang
Junior Asia Football tourney put him out of the jail and into the bar of some
consideration
Some money from the individual purse of that Samaritan
Policeman made his way forward to Kolkatta and he was at Kolkatta in 1978 at
the peak hour of heat ie the summer season as well as the peak hour of Inter
Club Transfer at Kolkatta
At Kolkatta he went to his sister place who was married That
sister was a far off relation to him He stayed there for two days and moved
around Kolkatta to see if those certificates and his valour for the Junior
India team that played football in Pyongyang could help him but those did not
help him at all Hunger, bad times, the
scene of his head of the family completely shattered and the stomach which
was burning like a pyre completely took it’s toll and his body became weak So
much so that in his last effort to get something out of Kolkatta he moved to
the Aryans Football club tent. However by that time when he reached the tent
his body gave away He fell unconscious in front of the club tent and his mouth
was full of froth He lay there in the
unconscious manner for about a day when a club official noticed that there was
somebody lying in an unconscious manner in the club premises
Shifted to a private
clinic : He gained sense and Football of Kolkatta armed him
At the clinic he was given all the treatment to come back to
the sense . He came back to the sense and when the Aryans club authorities took
him back to the club they got to know about this man who had played for india
in the Junior Asian Football tourney that was held at Pyongyang Immediately he
was signed by the club for a annual fee of Rs
750=00 per annum plus the food
which would be limited to the afternoon
only as after the practice the lunch would be the only help that the club would
offer him HE AGREED to that offer
1978: Aryans make it
to the semis of DCM trophy , Debashish takes them to the last four
It was the Kolkatta football season that brought him to the
forefront of Indian football . He made a mark in the very first season. His
main forte was the SPEED and the
ability to strike at the right
moment There were Shyam Thapa, Mohammed Akbar , Mihir Bose and by then Shabbir
Ali too had switched to Bengal joining East Bengal in the process That was a
REAL tough time for him to make his presence felt but a goal against East
Bengal in the 1978 Kolkatta IFA League and thereafter taking to Aryans in the
semis of the DCM Trophy was the real coloyrs to his added repertoire for the
club and the game In the DCM trophy in the semis his team lost by 4-0 against a
very vast and a superiror USSR team from Ukraine but Debashish stood out
against this club interms of the harrowing time that he gace it to those USSR
footballers from that club
1979: East Bengal
stretched too far and Kazma of Kuwait defeated Debashish strikes the Gold for
Aryans
1979 was the season and the reason for everything that this
man could earn for himself First in the IFA League against East Bengal his goal
saw East Bengal trailing by 1-0 at the breather It was late that in that match David
Williams pulled two shockers and too ballistic bomber that helped East Bengal
to beat Aryan by 4-1 In that match he really showed what a NATURAL speed could do and harass the East Bengal team
In the next scenario
was Kazma of Kuwait. Kazma , the present generation coots would not know what
it was It was East Bengal or Mohun Bagan of India to its football, it was Real
Madrid or F C Barcelona to the Spanish football or it was Bayern Munich to the
German football
Kuwait had introduced professionalism in it’s football and
there were a few European who were assisting that side Notwithstanding was
their reputation that they had come over here to play that tournament here in
the IFA Shield However in the pre-quarters Kazma got a SHOCK of their life when it lost to Aryans by 1-0 with Debashish
Roy being the scorer Debashish Roy ultimately had come to stay in Indian
football
1980 : Mohammedan
Wins the DCM Soccer , Debashish Roy awarded a watch worth Rs 14,000=00
1980 was the year when Kolkatta had wriiten a new epilog and
a new page in the chapter of Indian football . There was a mass exodus of
players Most of the East bengalian stars had switched over to Mohammedan
Sporting and to make it far more stronger Debashish Roy was added to the list
of the players of Mohammedan. The club won the DCM trophy against a virtual
selected South Koream national team which played the finals that day
Mohammedan scored that goal through Debashish Roy After swallowing
that goal the Korean plundered the Mohammedan territory with the speed of light The only reply that they
always got it back was the speed by which Debashish and Surojit Sengupta would
retaliate to counter them This retaliation somehow saved Mohammedan and some
acrobatic saves that Bhaskar Ganguly could pull for his team on that day
So happy was Mir Mohammed Mollah the General Secretary of
the club that he immediately announced a prize of Rs 1200=00 to each of the
players who played for Mohammedan Sporting that day beside taing away his watch
which was worth around Rs 14,000=00 and presenting it to Debashish Roy there
itself at the ground Victor Amalraj was
the Captain of that Mohammedan team
1980 : Santosh
Trophy, a WORST of INJURY hit him and he was out
It was the scene at Cuttack
at Orissa the national football championship was under process at Cuttack
Debashish was playing for Bengal as it was Bengal were moving ahead in the
tourney and they reached the quarters where they were ousted in the quarters
In that tournamemt in the quarter-finals against Goa he
received such a terrific injury in terms of the fracturte that his shin bones
was broken into two A Goan defender tackled him in such a manner that it broke
into two One portion of the bone from the leg pierced and came out of the leg
skin He could see that a small portion of the bone had lsot it’s chip There was
nobody and no one to attend him after that fateful injury
He looked for help and support but none came to him either
during the game when he was injured or anytime out of it He some how reached
Kolkatta and made his way to the clinic He was taken care of by the cilinic and
to some extemt by some of his well wishers that was all.
His fractured leg was plastered and it became OK after some
treatment .However the Doctors told him very FRANKLY- YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO PLAY FOOTBALL AGAIN
NO LIFE WITHOUT
FOOTBALL : HE DEFIES THE LAW OF NATURE
& COMES BACK TO FOOTBALL
Life without football for a player like him is like a LIFE without the LIGHT falling in the eyes or a pair of eyes without any light
in it The situation for him was such that he would have had to beg for
everything without football He was living his life till then by the pittance that the club was paying him
and ofcourse the one time food that were
served to the players during those days
There was’nt any job that he was doing Some assurances were
given to him by the institutios that he would be given a job by the bank but he
had no degree to show for those jobs Where would he go without football The leg
that suffered that injury was such that if pressure and stress falls on the
same he would not be able to walk More pressure on it would lead to amputation
The question was WHAT TO DO His
period of SPORTS REHABILITATION
started from there
He went in for the sand running first. Then he started the
skipping ie the rope skipping That added the strength on his calf muscles and
the thigh Thereafter it was short burst of speed While he would do all these he
would experience a HELLUVA pain. But he would stop for some times and then again he would start the
exercise Slowly the legs were in the shape to play the game but not the speed
that once possessed to run on the ground
He would limp a bit and that limping would pain the body but he could run fast
even then to play
It is with this kind of a PAIN that Debashish Roy played the game from 1981 to 1989 when he
finally bid good bye to the game
1981: Debashish Roy
is the JOINT TOP SCORER of Kolkatta IFA League and Mohs Sporting wins League
It was again in 1981 when he came back to Mohammedan Sportig
club Initiually there was no contract given to him. Everybody at Sporting were
very skeptical about him being able to survive in that kind of a HRASH and
ROUGH inclement weather of Kolkatta football On persistent insistence from the
various quarter he was finally registered as the player of Mohammedan in the
upfront His 13 goals helped Mohammedan
to win the IFA League title in 1981
HE WAS THE JOINT TOP
SCORER OF THE 1981 IFA LEAGUE WITH JAMSHID NASSISRI
He was asked to join
East Bengal which he did in 1982 and from 1982 to the end of the season till
1985 he remained with East Bengal
He helped East Bengal to win the 1982 IFA League It was
after a gap of six years that East Bengal had won that League He scored the all
important goal against Mohammedan Sporting in the Durand Semis where East
Bengal had shared the Durand Cup with Mohun Bagan later in that season
Losing out the IFA League to Mohun bagan in 1983 he was in a
large manner responsible for winning the DCM Trophy for East Bengal However the
Rovers Cup incident was the place where his dream of representing India in the
Senior International came to an end abruptly .In that match against Mohammedan
Sporting in the semis that SLAP incident to that referee by a East Bengal
player in which he along with Manoranjan Bhattacharjee, Bhaskar Ganguly, Mihir
Bose and Debashsish were summoned by the AIFF committee to clarify their stand,
the ultimate ban served to these players debarring them to represent India in
any International football tournament saw his dream of representing the Senior
Indian team go off with the wind however he rendered his services to the three
clubs of Kolkatta . In 1985 he was the one who helped East Bengal to win the
Federation Cup as and on the basisof individuality for the first time and he
went along in a big way to help East Bengal to win the Kolkatta IFA League as
well as the matches to help East Bengal qualify for the AC Cup which ws held at
Doha. He top scored in the Qualifying matches for East Bengal by scoring 10
goals and he scored the only goal for East Bengal in that A C Cup proper match
at Doha The three matches then that East Bengal plyed they lost the three
matches by the score of 0-1, 1-2 and 0-3
in the three games that they played against their opponent The only goal in that tourney was scored by
Debashish Roy for East Bengal
1986 : Debashish Roy
moves to Mohun Bagan
After the Santosh
Trophy football which was held at Jabalpur in 1986 where Punjab won that championship defeating
Bengal by the tie breaker Debashish Roy was given an offer of Rs 1.50 lakhs per
season for two season to play for Mohun Bagan He was ther HIGHEST paid
footballer on that occasion in the Kolkatta football This offer was which he
could not turn down in any case
His life till then had seen the PLIGHT of PAINS and INHUMAN
tolerance that was metted out to the game of football and to the sportsman The
injury and the death of his parents were too much for him to swallow Over it he
had to getr his sisters at Assam at karimganj married and settled down in their
life He badly needed the money to build his own house .All these days he was
living and staying in a way or the other at Kolkatta on the mercy of some Samaritans who gave him
some leverages as a footballer to live. He knew then that no sooner that he
leaves football it would be all over for him
In between the performance of him playing football and
playing against some top class team and scoring goals against some very top
class teams of Asia especially the goal he scored against Port Authority XI of
Bangkok and that goal against that famed club in the A C Cup helped him to get
a job at the FCI He was earning but that was not enough
Taking his future
into consideration and his future in the game with that kind of a leg which was
not capable to play football but he was risking his life to play football he
was playing the game, he accepted the offer That offer helped him to buy a plot
at the Thakorepukur area of Kolkatta to build his house, a small one but enough
to live a peaceful life and he one by one got his two sisters married to good
family He thus fulfilled his duty as a son to the family that his father had
left and deserted this world
He later got married to the sister of another footballer
Tapan das who played for Mohun Bagan and East Bengal from 1977 to 1986 Tapan
das in his lasy year in Indian football had played for Behala Youth in 1985-86
and he was employed with the Bank of India.
Debashish Roy and his contribution to the
clubs he played from 1984
In 1984 he was the top scorer for East Bengal in the Kolkatt
IFA League . He won the IFA Sheild for East Bengal where they defeated Mohun Bagan
by 1-0 in the finals East Bengal could not win the Fed Cup in 1984 despite
making it to the finals. In 1985 he won the Fed Cup for East Bengal He was
responsible for East Bengal with his two goals to beat Punjab State electricity
Board by 2-1 in the two legged semis. Thereafter it was the A C Cup that I
mentioned here
In 1986 his lone
goal enabled Mohun Bagan to beat East
Bengal by 1-0 to win the Durand
. Again in the Rovers Cup it was his goal which enabled Mohun Bagan to beat
East Bengal in the semis by 2-0 A very strong East Bengal ws beaten by Mohun
Bagan. In the Durand again in 1987 a goal each by Debashish Roy, Shishir Ghosh and Victor Amalraj had helped Mohun
Bagan to beat East Bengal by 3=0 in the semis but Mohun Bagan had lost to JCT Mills by 1-2 in the finals The only
goal of the finals for Mohun Bagan came through Debashish Roy
In between he
captained the Bengal state football team at Jabalpur for the 1986 finals where
they lost to Punjab in the tie breaker It was the seson 1988-89 where again he
top scored in the Kolkkatta Football league for Mohun Bagan though they could
not win the league
Debashish Roy : Only
Player in annals of Kolkatta League to top score for three different club
He is the ONLY player
in the annals of the Kolkatta League to play for three different club and top
score in the Kolkatta IFA League in the annals of Kolkatta IFA League
After the 1989 season and in that year he decided to give
away playing football for ever That leg which was NOT fit enough for him to run
and play football and that decision where he defied the dictums and the orders
of the doctors to continue playing this game finally had send a message to him-
STOP PLAYING FINALLY OR THE LEGS WOULD
BE AMPUTED That signals of the world of medics saw him taking a decision of
NOT playing FOOTBALLat all and for ever since then
It is so INTRIGUING
and so very HARD to believe that he played football inspite of
his legs not at all fit enough to play this game at all. He took a HELLUVA risk
to play this game from that fracture which hit him at 1980 to play this game
till the end of the 1989 season He had to defy the order of the nature to play
this game and get something for his life. Without it he would have been a BEGGAR else on the road for begging
It is for this VALOUR in 1983 when he had to appear before
the AIFF committee to give his stand on SLAPPING the referee that he POINT
BLANK told to the CEO of AIFF Mr Dutta that-
EVEN IF I HAVE TO DIE AND LIVE
WITHOUT ANYTHING, I’M NOT GOING TO BEG FOR ANY MERCY OR PLEAD FOR ANY MERCY
FROM THE AIFF TO PARDON ME PLAYING THIS GAME
“ I have played this game for my LIVING without any ALMS from anybody
and I do not have to request by asking the AIFF to pardon me to play football
Any sort and any kind of BEGGING in terms of MERCY is out of my imagination
That is it ”
That pains and that painful legs which would cause IMENSE
pain also could not STOP this man from playing this game for that many a years
Imagine the pains that he would be in but then he continued because HE HAD TO LIVE AND SURVIVE FOR THE NEXT DAY
Job: Promotion,
Tansfer and the charges levelled against him
He was promoted by the FCI as a Supervisor and as transferred to Burdwan He initially DID not like to accept either the
promotion or the transfer However he had to comply with the decision When he
took up the posting the job responsibility,
he found that the Burdwan depot of FCI was a place which was meant for
the looters as the FCI employee at Burdwan were hands in gloves with the traders and the black
marketers and would loot the commodities that would be stored at the godowns
Like a TRUE soldier
and a PATRIOT and one who was a WARRIOR of football in the field he
reported the matter to the highest authorities. But the hands in gloves led by
Somnath Chatterjee who was in team mate at the Mohun Bagan framed a charge
against him and fixed him for all the undoings at that godown at Burdwan
He was discharged from the duties but the WARRIOR that he
was he single handedly fought against them and turned the odds in his favour.
Once completely cleared by the FCI and once completely getting a CLEAN CHIT by the FCI he was asked to continue in his job. He had about 12 years of
service left BUT HE RESIGNED saying that
HE WAS NOT A MAN WHO WOULD WORK AMONGST THE “ SHIT “
He left his job and went back to Karim Nagar. He sold his
piece of plot and the house that he had constructed on it and with his PF and
the gratuity he went back to his root at Karim Nagar His source of income is Rs
96,000=00/annum that he receives it from the Assam Government for representing
India in football That is it His another source of income is whenever he is
called to coach the teams from assam, he goes over there to coach those teams
That is his only source of income
ANOTHER CRUEL TEST OF
HIS LIFE : HIS SON CAME BACK TO LIFE
His marriage produced him a son. Destiny had a CRUEL fate written for him. The only
son that was born to him, had NEUROLOGICAL
problems for him and his family to face The son could not SENCE and SENSE anything in life
normally though he was alive He DID NOT
GIVE UP. Constant application of head massaging, and with all the medicnies
that the world of medicine from the arurveda and the herbs that he could
provide to his son, his son after many many and many a days regained the
composure
He is now studying in the Shantiniketan at Bolpur District
at West Bengal and is doing his studies in Arts. When the days you start is
very late it is the age that puts you far away in that age However the son is doing his studies well despite of
the fact that he is overaged Because he started very late after totally being
healed from the disease that he was carrying, his everything is late says
Debashish but then- WITHOUT A PROPER
EDUCATION YOU CANNOT LEAD YOUR LIFE That is the reason he is making his son
to atleast be a graduate
This is the LIFE of a SPORTSMAN especially if he is NOT a
cricketer and if he comes from a very humble and a POOR background
Life goes on says Debashish I’m HAPPY with whatever GOD
and LIFE has given me I have NEVER gone to anybody, any club for any
help and I would NOT do that Again if the club feels that they are INDEBTED to me and those who have won TROPHIES and TROPHIES for them they should think about us We played football in
those days when there was NO MONEY
and we gave whatever BEST that we could have given to them
In our days we did not have the money and we did not play at
all for the money We LOVED the game and played for the game The game has given
what it had to give and that is what we have it with us
Thanks to FOOTBALL
which gave me something to survive and live if NOT everything that I wanted out
of my life That was that he told before we signed off
That is Debashish Roy
for you That is INDIAN football for you That is the INDIAN FOOTBALL star for
you That is it
Rgds
Shyamal Bhattacharjee
Amazing exhibition of passion, grit determination & above all the love for the game. Wow that's what differentiates the men from the boys. Wonder if such breeds are available in today's world? 🤔🙏
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