SEPT – Bringing Hope to Football in Kerala

SEPT Football Nursery

SEPT Football Nursery

“Those days, back in the 1990s, a footballer from Kerala was looked upon with awe,” remembers IM Vijayan, a native of Kerala and one of the greatest footballers India has ever produced. Reminiscing further, he says, “You guys are tigers, they used to tell me. Outstanding talents just continued to flow out of our tiny state. The quality of our players surprised everyone. We had V. P. Sathyan, C. V. Pappachan, U. Sharaf Ali, K. T. Chacko, Kurikesh Mathew, Mathew Varghese, Jo Paul Ancheri…”

It’s true. There was a time when Kerala footballers even formed the majority of the Indian national team. “I remember having around nine players from Kerala at an Indian camp,” says Vijayan. “And there were occasions when five of us actually made the eleven.” Since then, there has been a mighty fall from grace.

 

Today, there are barely any players from Kerala playing for the national team, the state doesn’t have a single professional club in the country’s national league, there are no regular local football tournaments, the state football federation is in disarray and schools are mindlessly trading playing fields for soulless concrete buildings. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that things can only get better from here. Amid the ruins, as it were, there are many grassroots academies doing amazing work for football in Kerala, but there is one name that stands out – Sports & Education Promotion Trust (SEPT) Football Nursery.

Team SEPT with Maradona

Team SEPT with Maradona
Image Courtesy: SEPT Website

Set up in 2004 by a group of football enthusiasts in Calicut, SEPT is a voluntary organisation that promotes sports development in India with a special focus on football. Through their efforts, SEPT reaches out to young children in the rural, suburban, coastal and tribal belts of Kerala and provides them with early age training and the chance to enter the football mainstream. The organisation’s focus is to give underprivileged and marginalised children holistic development opportunities through good nutrition, clothing, shelter and education while enhancing their football skills.

Speaking on the progress that they have made over the years, SEPT Chairman, Mr Arun K Nanu says:

“When we started SEPT in 2004, we had a vision to become the change in grassroots football development that India desperately needed. We knew it would be a gradual process, but with the right infrastructure and management team behind it, we knew this had all the potential to become one of India’s leading football training organisations. Kerala was the ideal place for such a venture, not just because of the popularity of the sport, but also for the amount of untapped talent in the state.”

What makes SEPT truly outstanding is the time and effort that they have invested in developing their technical team. Over the years, SEPT has built a team of over 100 trained coaches who enjoy regular access to leading experts from Holland, Germany, Brazil and Malaysia through well-structured collaborations and refresher programs. This has helped local coaches bring global best practices back to their training sessions.

Training at SEPT

Training at SEPT
Image Courtesy: SEPT Website

In this regard, SEPT Chief Coach, Manoj Kumar, says:

“The ideology behind the training methods at SEPT is a long-term one. Our intention is not to train the kids just to win the next tournament, but to develop their bodies and their minds for the long run. We teach them how to play as a team and how to understand the playing styles of their own teammates and adapt to it. A huge part of our success is down to the support we’ve received from foreign coaches and clubs, who have imparted coaching methods to our coaches.”

What began 11 years ago as a local concept in Calicut has now metamorphosed into a state-wide phenomenon with 52 football nurseries set up across the length and breadth of Kerala. Over time, they have produced footballers who have represented the state and country at various age groups and sent teams to participate at numerous national and international tournaments giving their children a chance to experience the world through football. In 2007, the SEPT team took part in the Dalecarlia Cup in Sweden, and the Kokkola Cup in Finland. Their Under-11 team won the Dalecarlia Cup and finished 5th in the Kokkola Cup where they competed against 35 other teams, most of whom hailed from Europe.

SEPT Boys for India U16 Team

SEPT Boys in the India U16 Team – Inayath, Rahul, Roshen
Image Courtesy: SEPT Facebook Page

With plans to set up a full-scale residential academy in the near future, SEPT, already the largest football nursery network in India, aims to set the bar higher than ever before and they will need all the support that they can get. It is only fair that a football-crazy state like Kerala which has given so much to Indian football serves as home ground for an organisation such as SEPT.

As former international and Kerala footballer, Victor Manjila rightly says:

“Football, I believe, is still the favourite sport for most Malayalis and is still played more than any other sport by our kids across the state, but we have to act if we want to keep it the way it is.”

It’s about time Kerala football got its due, and SEPT is certainly doing more than its fair share to make things better.

5 Comments

  1. Keep up your good work and you will surely profit from it in the future.
    For the people that know me and Brenda; we are now living in Portugal

  2. Dr.Reginold Varghese

    October 14, 2015 at 9:55 pm

    Yes. Grass root is the right level to enrich a boy or girl with soccer passion. Then he / she will perform at greater heights in future. congrats for the good works by SEPT.

  3. sir, two years back I read a supplement in Mathrubhoomi daily about your good effort 4 the promotion of football at that time I wished to set up a training camp in my native place Payyanur, Kannur by the Technical support of ur organisation. So now I request u to a possitive reply to me.

    Shyam Lal (lover of Footbal)

  4. Sir,
    It s great to here abt ur wonderful initiative. I m from Kollam (chakkuvally) n I would like to know abt ur units in Kollam dist. for my son who s an avid football lover currently practicing in Thrissur.
    Anticipating a swift n favorable reply,
    Radhika

    • Grassroots Football India

      February 16, 2016 at 12:57 pm

      Hello Radhika,

      We have forwarded your inquiry to SEPT. Hope they contact you directly. If not, please visit their website http://www.sept.in and call them on the numbers listed there. Hope you find a suitable coaching program for your son.

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