Bipin Memorial Football Tournament – Origin & Initial Years Part 1

by Siddharth Yadav November 2, 2016

Bipin Memorial:

Twenty-nine years ago in Mumbai, Bipin Karkera missed the December 1988 Rovers Cup final owing to an unexpected arrival of a guest. As a promise, his father Surendra Karkera, a former First Division player in Mumbai, agreed to take Bipin to the grounds for the next football tournament.

Unfortunately, Bipin couldn’t make it to the next tournament. Four days after he extracted a promise from his father, Bipin sadly passed away due to breathing complications. He was just six years old at the time of his sudden demise.

After a month, Surendra Karkera along with his friends and colleagues chipped in Rs. 65,000 and organised the first Bipin Memorial Football Tournament which featured the top eight teams in the city.

In its initial years, the Bipin Memorial Football Association (BMFA), organised the tournaments for only Super Division teams, which saw the participation of some of the leading clubs of Mumbai. Clubs like Mahindra & Mahindra, Central Railway, Air India, Bombay/Mumbai Customs, Union Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Bank of India, M.S Police, and Orkay Mills who won the inaugural Bipin Memorial Tournament in 1988.

Back in the day, Orkay Mills were considered to be the team who had quality players at their disposal.

“It’s an expensive affair and corporate sponsorships are not easily forthcoming. However, I have not abandoned my dream of setting up a football academy in the city. It’s my way of ensuring Bipin’s memory lives on,” Surendra Karkera statement to Times of India (published on Saturday, December 6, 1997).

Big names from Indian sports has been associated with BMFA over the years. Former Olympians, S.S Narayan, Sanjiva Utchil, Furtunato Franco, former Internationals like Dereck D’Souza, J Kosalram, Bernard Pereira, Arthur Pereira are some of the names to get involved.

Olympian Adille Sumariwala presenting the Winners Trophy. Poinsur Gymkhana team defeated Thakur Village 2-0 to become 18th Bipin Tournament Winner.

J. Kosalram displaying ball control techniques on the opening day of 5th Bipin Memorial Tournament.

State Football Hafeez alongside former Olympian S S Narayan demonstrating a muscle building exercise.

Orkay Mills winger Bernard Pereira putting the trainees through their paces at Advanced Bipin Memorial Camp – 1990

The BMFA thus decided to shift their attention towards the school kids and began to gather their resources to nurture young talents by starting free coaching camps for boys who are below 16 years of age. The unique feature of Bipin Memorial Tournament is that apart from providing free coaching, the players are provided with free jersey, stockings, kit-bags and their entire expenses during the Tournament.

Over the years, hundreds of talented and young aspirants have showcased their skills at this tournament and have further gone ahead to represent, the state, big clubs, and even the Indian National Team.

Steven Dias, Jeevan Moraes, Ryan D’Souza, Khalid Siddique and Radhakrishnan Dubey are some of the names who have made a career out of these camps.

The Bipin Football Academy has plans to continue its coaching activities to young budding footballers and retain the selected few for advanced training on an ongoing basis which would not only provide opportunities to hone their skills but also help them develop and groom to become future footballers of the country.

The 29th Bipin Memorial Tournament will kick-off from 29th November 2016 onwards.

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