Sharon footballers play against all odds

After Mulund school shows no interest in fielding football team, students do it on their own

Sharon footballers play against all odds

After Mulund school shows no interest in fielding football team, students do it on their own

When the management of Sharon English High School (Mulund) refused to support some of their students' footballing ambitions, the players decided to take it upon themselves to ensure they competed in the Nike-MSSA football tournament.

"The players decided to chip in with the money for the kits, which was Rs 500 each and we picked Scottish side Celticu00a0 Rangers' colours for ourselves," skipper Nishta Bhattarjee told MiD DAY yesterday after his team beat Don Bosco (Vikhroli) 3-0 in a Nike-MSSA U-16 inter-school football match at Azad Maidan yesterday.

The kids' repeated requests for a coach too fell on deaf ears. "Fortunately, two of our ex-students, Pranav Manek and Darshan Shah decided to help us out on the coaching front," added Nishta.

"We always wanted to see our school do well in football and as an ex-student I'm happy I could help these boys," said Pranav.

According to one of the players, all the boys' parents were made to sign a letter stating that the children are playing in the inter-school tournament at their own risku00a0and that the school is not responsible for any untoward incident that may happen during that time.

However, all the problems aside, the team has managed to do quite well. They drew two of their previous matches and lost one. And yesterday's victory will be a definite morale-booster.

But the absence ofu00a0 a professional coach still hurts. "We love football and have done all this for the love of the game. But we feel bad when we see other teams coming to the ground with professional coaches," said Nishta.
In yesterday's match, Aditya Thakkar, Jash Joshi and Hardik Thakkar scored for Sharon English.