Dhanarajan Radhakrishnan
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A brief biography
Arun George, Dec 31, 2019 The Times of India
The frail young footballer, desperate for a break, that iconic coach TK Chathunni met sometime in the last decade was indistinguishable from the seasoned veteran that amateur striker Ansar KJ encountered at Perinthalmanna on Sunday night.
Just as Chathunni remembers vividly, the lad who could play in an array of positions along the backline, whom he promptly signed up for the erstwhile Viva Kerala, Ansar too found Dhanarajan Radhakrishnan, at 39, to be a champion footballer.
Only, while Chathunni saw Dhanarajan at the threshold of what would later become an enterprising football journey strewn with accomplishments as emblematic as lifting the prestigious Durand Cup and the Santosh Trophy, young Ansar discovered ‘Dhana’, as he is fondly called, in his final moments on a football pitch.
After not giving the young striker of Sastha Thrissur an inch for 27 minutes, Dhanarajan, the veteran who was representing FC Perinthalmanna in the pre-quarterfinals of a seven’s football tournament at Perinthalmanna in Malappuram collapsed. He was rushed to a private hospital only a stone’s throw away from the ground and there, after 20 minutes, Dhana was pronounced dead from a cardiac arrest. A champion who lived for the game perished doing what he loved the most.
Born into a humble household at Kallepully in Palakkad, Dhana had to work as helper at an automobile workshop before finding his true calling on the football pitch.
