Football did not send its calling card to India announcing its arrival. The game captured the fancy of Indians by accident than design. “Kick it back to me, boy,” a British soldier had said to a young Bengali lad who went by the name of Nagendra Prasad Sarbhadhikari.Sometime in the mid-nineteenth century in colonial India, Nagendra Prasad had stood watching a few British soldiers kick a leather-bound sphere around, one that had suddenly rolled towards him.With a sense of curious optimism, he kicked it back and thus became the first Indian to touch a football. … Read More