There was a time not long ago when Kerala football looked dead and buried. The great days of the 1980s and ’90s, when Kerala Police competed with the best teams in the country, were long gone, and famous stadiums like the Corporation Stadium in Calicut (now the EMS Stadium) had become accustomed to crowds of only a few hundred, where once 30,000 to 40,000 fans packed the galleries.
Even the relatively new Gokulam FC, which once attracted average attendances of nearly 20,000 before the COVID-19 pandemic, now struggles to get more than 3,000 spectators. The flow of players to the national team had slowed to a trickle, and there was no figure comparable to an IM Vijayan, a VP Sathyan, a CV Pappachan or Sharaf Ali from the 1980s, nor a Jo Paul Ancheri from the 1990s. In short, Kerala football had hit a wall.
But in the last few weeks, what we’ve seen is the continuation of a new renaissance. Super League Kerala was a fledgling experiment last year, and although it received a spirited response from fans, not all six teams hosted games at their home venues, giving many matches an atmosphere as flat as most ISL or I-League games.
This season, however, with each of the six teams based in Kozhikode (Calicut), Malappuram, Thrissur, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram hosting their own matches, the turnout has been almost unprecedented. The Malabar Derby between Calicut and Malappuram on Monday, a working day, no less, pulled in 34,173 fans. If you had only seen the pictures and videos from the terraces, you might have thought you were in Buenos Aires for River Plate–Boca Juniors, or in Belgrade for the Eternal Derby. There were flares going off, fans bouncing for the entire 90 minutes, and noise levels that would have blown the roof off, had there been one.
Most importantly, it’s helping to create a new generation of heroes. When Muhammed Ajsal came off after scoring what proved to be the decisive second goal in Calicut’s 3–1 victory, the packed far gallery rose almost as one to applaud him. They had been chanting his name for most of the match. Kannur’s Mohammed Sinan, whose father and grandfather still work in the local market, has become a cult hero and a reliable goal-scoring winger, and there are many more emerging.
Even the likes of Roy Krishna, who played for Malappuram on Monday, an experienced Fiji international who has also starred in the ISL, seemed stunned by the atmosphere, by the volume, ferocity and enthusiasm on display. The total attendance for the first half of the season, 15 matches, crossed 250,000.
It may only be a state league, but given the doom and gloom around Indian football, and the overall air of pessimism that follows the sport, Super League Kerala has shown that it’s not that fans don’t love football, you just need to give them a product they believe in, with a local connection, and they will come. There is a lesson here for decision-makers everywhere.
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