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.