A dramatic comeback is everyone’s favourite story, especially when it comes to sports. But what happens the season after, when the pressure of proving that the triumph was not a mere fluke bears down on the champion? As the 1976 season of the senior division football league was coming to an end in June, the once-legendary Wimco football club was the centre of all attention for the same reason. Would the team that had won the championship in 1975, after a long 19 years, manage to repeat its feat? Or was the much-celebrated victory a mere flash in the pan?
Much to the delight of the Wimco’s fans, the team triumphed, again.
In the 50s, Wimco’s domination of the senior division football league was complete. It won the title six years on the trot, from 1950 to 1955 — it was a time when its top players, including centre-forward M. Thangaraj and right-back K. Balagopal, were at the peak of their prowess.
“Even in the second half of the 1950s and the early 1960s, Wimco was still a formidable team though it did not win any title. Then, Thangaraj’s early retirement from football, at the age of 32, was a body blow to the team. Thangaraj had begun his career when he was a teenager. In the early 1970s, Wimco’s performances were often lacklustre,” says R. Mohanakrishnan, who represented Tamil Nadu at national football tournaments during that period.
What then enabled Wimco to suddenly win the senior division title in 1975?
Right-extreme F.A. Prabhakaran, who was part of the winning Wimco team of 1975 and 1976, says, “Balagopal (from the immensely successful Wimco team of the 1950s) was in charge of our team. He gave us the freedom to choose our style. He simultaneously worked on our confidence and motivated us.”
