Pradip Kumar Banerjee
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A brief biography
I
Nilesh Bhattacharya, March 21, 2020: The Times of India
From: Nilesh Bhattacharya, March 21, 2020: The Times of India
From: March 21, 2020: The Times of India
Some legends are born out of fabled tales, unverifiable but ubiquitous and soaked in tradition. Some legends are as elusive as a dream, as vague as a vignette. The legend of Pradip Kumar Banerjee — the venerable PK to everyone — is, however, self-made, built on the foundation of a dazzling career as player and coach, and subsequently passed on to generations of illustrious students who have served Indian football with distinction. Having shepherded East Bengal to 30 trophies and Mohun Bagan to 23, he stood like a colossus for about three decades, bringing the best out of his players and inspiring them to embellish Indian football with performances that are part of Indian football’s folklore.
Born to Prabhat and Bina Banerjee at Mainaguri in Jalpaiguri district in 1936, he was named Pradip as he was the first child to light up the family.
The journey that he began with a Santosh Trophy campaign for Bihar as a 15-year-old and went on to illuminate Indian football for about five decades in various capacities, have reached its final destination.
A man for all seasons and equipped with extraordinary management skills to transform adversity into antidote, PK will be remembered for his famous vocal tonic — those legendary pre-match pep-talks he delivered to inspire players to defy odds.
During the Federation Cup final in 1980, when a depleted and new-look East Bengal entered the Eden Gardens, star-studded Mohun Bagan were expected to have a cakewalk. But PK pulled off a coup with newcomer Majid Bishkar, comparing him with the 1979 Iranian Revolution leader Ayatollah Khomeini, and triggering the birth of a legend around the Iranian himself. It was the stuff folklores are made of. The result was an odds-defying 1-1 draw.
Yet, the legend of PK is not a straightforward narrative, documented in his records as a manager. His legacy will more significantly be remembered for presiding over a time when India dared to brush shoulders with global giants. A twotime Olympian, he was part of Indian football’s best-ever performance on global stage when they finished fourth in the Melbourne Games in 1956 and went on to lead the national team four years later at the Rome Games. However, the icing on the cake of what is still regarded as the golden age of Indian football came in the Jakarta Asian Games in 1962. He scored in the final against South Korea as India rode the brilliance of the holy trinity — PK, Chuni Goswami and Tulsidas Balaram — to the gold medal.
For someone who never played for Mohun Bagan and East Bengal and stayed loyal to Eastern Railway for 13 straight seasons, helping his team break the Big Two’s duopoly in the 1958 Calcutta Football League, PK carved a niche for himself in a way very few would have even dreamed of. He was not as flamboyant and adventurous as Chuni, neither was he as instinctive as Balaram in front of the goal. But he possessed something that kept him well ahead of his time when tactics and systems were still evolving — a sharp football brain. It was that acumen which helped him evolve into a master strategist soon after hanging up his boots in 1966. His development as a coach was intrinsically linked to his fabled rivalry with Amal Datta. Unlike Datta, PK was not a rebel or an idealist. In fact, he was often accused of seeking success with the best in the business. The truth is that none could manage to handle egos of superstar players as capably as him, bringing the best out of them and paving the way for the team’s cause. And, unlike his eight-year senior ‘rival’ Datta, for whom system was sacrosanct, PK was more pragmatic, rolling out tactics according to need of the hour and quality of players, and not the other way round.
It was his pragmatism which made him tweak Mohun Bagan’s formation to 5-4-1 that helped them earn a famous 1-1 draw against then-Soviet Union giants FC Ararat Yerevan and be declared joint winners of the 1978 IFA Shield. Any dissection of PK’s worth as a coach would remain incomplete without a mention of the 1997 Federation Cup semifinal.
Mohun Bagan were sparkling in a diamond system at that time under Datta, who started mind games by ridiculing the opponents, calling East Bengal’s Kenyan defender Sammy Omollo ‘omelette’ and Bhaichung Bhutia ‘Chung Chung’ in inimitable style, little realizing how this would play into the hands of his bête noir. In front of more than 1,30,000 spectators, PK responded to the challenge with an Indian version of Catenaccio — bringing in Dulal Biswas and Amitava Chanda in defensive line-up and playing Kenyan goalkeeper Azande Abulista in place of the regular Kalyan Chaubey in a move aimed at thwarting the opponents’ aerial challenge. Having soaked up Bagan’s blistering early pressure, PK’s East Bengal had the last laugh with Bhaichung scoring a hat-trick in a 4-1 win.
The death of his wife Arati in 2003 devastated him mentally and a cerebral hemorrhage slowed him down physically in 2006. Over the last few years, he was largely confined to his Salt Lake home.
The idea of a living legend is often short-lived. But PK lived his life king-size and over more than five decades. Long live the legend!
II
Beware the Ides of March, the soothsayer had warned Julius Ceasar. Over a decade and half ago, on March 20, 2003, Indian football lost one its finest playmaker of the 1980s when Krishanu Dey passed away. Another colossus of Indian football was no more.
PK was the colossus of a sport when it was a simpler endeavor, rich in its amateur, working class ethos that helped capture international successes that we continue to celebrate to this day. But he was intelligent enough to combine those very ideals with a modern-day cunning as he later forged an equally brilliant career as a coach and strategist. He straddled both roles to emerge as one of the first nationally recognizable faces across all Indian sport. Heroes are irresistible to Calcutta and a welcoming city took to him with open arms.
PK is the first to take leave of a trio that includes Chuni Goswami and Tulsidas Balaram. A brilliant and fearsome attacking trio, during their prime they were the best in Asia, inarguably the greatest-ever in Indian football, each different with unique qualities. Chuni was an ace dribbler with an exquisite body swerve, Balaram had remarkable passing ability and played Total Football much before the idea took shape. PK was the dashing and skillful right winger with a blistering shot. Arguably the greatest sportsperson to come out of Bihar, he played for the state in the Santosh trophy only 15. In 1954, he moved to Calcutta and signed up with Aryans FC. A year later, he got a job as ticket collector with Eastern Railway. But it was his India career where PK’s undeniable legend as a footballer resides. Despite not coming from any of Calcutta’s Big Three, PK still walked into every India side ever since his debut as a 19-year -old in the 1955 Quadrangular tournament in Dhaka. He was an Olympian a year later – a callow, but supremely confident 20-year-old in Syed Abdul Rahim’s famous side at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. That Australian summer is the greatest story of Indian football – the team finished fourth, narrowly missing on a bronze medal. Possibly his greatest moment was the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta when he scored first in the 2-1 win over South Korea to earn India the gold. Five years later, his international career would end due to injury PK took to coaching like a duck to water, it was perhaps his true calling. In the late 1990s, there was a saying that rang true across he maidan: “Where PK goes, the trophies go.” His 50 domestic trophies and more remains a record in Indian club football. The Mohun Bagan faithful will hotly contest the idea that which of the two clubs’ fortunes PK helped more, but he first attained legendary status when East Bengal took him on for the 1972 season.
Pouring into Calcutta, having survived the trauma of the Bengal Partition of 1971, for East Bengal’s passionate supporters, PK Banerjee was the promised messiah. He invented the on-field huddle before it became a commodity on live TV. The maidan decibel levels have never been as high as when PK’s East Bengal were playing in the 1970s. It was through him that East Bengal’s young supporters fulfilled their fantasies and dreams during the turbulence in the rise of the Left and the Naxalite movement.
PK’s rivalry with the late Amal Dutta dominated and enthralled Calcutta club football for three decades. The high noon was the famous1997 Federation Cup semifinal between Dutta’s Mohun Bagan and the PK-coached East Bengal. Bagan were decidedly favourites but it would be PK’s finest moment in the act of motivation.
Calcutta was in a frenzy. Bagan played exciting, attacking football in the 3-4-3 formation, using the diamond system in midfield. As a ploy, in his interviews with the local press, Dutta had been scornful of Bhaichung Bhutia, even suggesting that East Bengal’s main striker was overrated. On the eve of the final, PK Banerjee invited Bhutia to dinner and served him a detailed account of all the scorn being heaped on him by the rival coach. A livid Bhutia was so charged up that he helped himself to a hat trick, as he guided East Bengal to a memorable 4-1 victory in front of a record 131,000 fans at the mammoth Salt Lake Stadium. Bhutia’s hat-trick was the first in the derby in seventy-two years after both clubs first played each other on May 28, 1925!
PK Banerjee was India’s first larger than life Indian coach, India’s equivalent of Bill Shankly -- persuasive, clairvoyant and passionate about the game. He brought a new dimension to football coaching in India, the coach as a star, and ensured that he remained the star till his end.
(Veteran sports commentator and football historian, Novy Kapadia is also the author of Barefoot to Boots, Many Lives of Indian Football)
