The Golden Game

Oh. He’s football crazy, he’s football mad
And the football it has robbed him o” the wee bit sense he had
And it would take a dozen skivvies, his clothes to wash and scrub
Since our jock became a member of that terrible football club …

Jimmie McGregor [‘Football Crazy’ 1960 song.]

In Sikkim, the spiritual land of my soul, football and moonshine are the two most important subjects.

Some people think football is a matter of life and death .. I can assure them that it is much more than that . To the true son of the hills Goli is religion, church, sacrament and penance rolled into one. In Sikkim, there are three seasons: summer, winter, and football!

I remember in the bad old days of Boredarshan, how some of us drove cars over the mountains to the top of a particular ridge in 1986, so we could aim makeshift antennae and catch weak signals from across the border to catch the opening of the World Cup live… what we saw mostly was a lot of grains… but we drove back triumphant and bleary eyed, secure that the ritual had been satisfactorily performed and we had participated in the quintessential pontifical observance that separated the true worshippers of the leathern sphere from the neophytes.

World Cup Fever is in the air and I’m a believer.

To my friends in Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, North Bengal and Sikkim… To all football fanatics the world over: Viva la compagnie!