And guess what? It paid. Well fortunately for me, I was part of the team which won the runners-up trophy! And I won an individual medal – my first sports win ever!
The match took place in the nearby HIDCO Ground located just behind our Kolkata office complex. There were five teams who participated – Teams A, B, C, D and E. The tournament started with the league matches and after a series of qualifiers, the top two teams went on for the finals. The ultimate face-off was between Team C efficiently captained by Ranjit Shaw and Team D led by Sumanta Sen. Team C emerged as the Winners and Team D (including me) was announced Runners-up.
Given that I played for hardly 5 -6 minutes (given my disposition with sports!) and was mostly in the outfield I managed to get a birds-eye view of all the incidents on-field. Well this happens only if you are one of the lucky few!
So here I am sharing the most memorable and comic moment of the event – in one of the qualifiers, my friend Sourav Das was so excited that he forgot which side he was playing for! His teammate Gopal Das managed a great shot and might have scored a goal if it were not for Sourav who saved it – forgetting that he was not the defender of the opponent team but the striker for his own team!
Further, this event helped me stumble upon other ‘sports gems’ like me who manage to mesmerize the audience with their stunning performance and skills – my friend Sujay Ghosh (who played for 8 minutes then returned injured – he was seen on the ground face-down, before he returned) and another friend Alok (who played for 3 minutes then returned injured). Of course I was leader of the gang as I ended up being the 12th man (who played for 4 minutes and returned – touched the ball just once 😉
What I want to mention is that the idea of these events are not just playing or showing great football skills, instead we were there to have some fun. I am sure everyone enjoyed themselves thoroughly. So – come one come all – play next year and you might get as lucky as me!
Truly a day with a difference!
For photos of the event, click here
Abhisek Gupta is Executive – Human Resource at eRevMax and is responsible for recruitments and HR operations. Abhisek is based out of Kolkata and can be reached at abhisekg@erevmax.com