Magazine Article : The Barclays Bandwagon

Directly taken from an older blog:

This is the content of the article I submitted for my college magazine. Comments are invited :

The Barclays Bandwagon

Most revolutions are sparked off by an event of significance, in some cases a moment of pure magic, a script straight from the movies. On a cold night(26 May 1999, to be precise) at the Nou Camp, Barcelona, Spain, a footballing fortress of legendary repute, a series of such events converged to result in what is remembered as one of the greatest footballing fightbacks of all time. When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came up with the toe poke of a lifetime to set up a Manchester United Champions League Triumph, an astonished world was watching. In the now legendary words of the delirious commentator - " ... and Manchester United rule Europe. I don't believe it, but it's happened. They've come from one-nil down in stoppage time to beat Bayern Munich. And the Munich players are on their knees, they don't know what's hit them... MANCHESTER'S HIT THEM! ". Often referred to as "The Miracle of the Nou Camp", this match would have a massive impact on the mass appeal of the English game in Asia.

The English Premier League, as a phenomenon, has gripped most of South and South-East Asia over the last few years or so, thanks mostly to moments like the one above and ESPN-Star's superb live coverage of almost every minute of the action. From schools to colleges to workplaces, new heroes have emerged. Fixtures taking place in distant English cities like Liverpool, Manchester and London are arousing fiery passions in the hearts of both the young and old. Names such as Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard have become part and parcel of any urban households vocabulary. Bars and Lounges find themselves jampacked during the weekends as Premiership Saturday and Super Sunday grace the television screens. Clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have a massive number of fans, veritable armies actually, rooting for them every time they step on to the hallowed turf of their respective grounds. Launched in 1992 to improve the standards of English Football at the highest level and take the game into the 21st century, the competition is now thriving, regularly attracting a global audience of over 570 million across 162 countries.

So, after analysing the giddy heights to which EPL fever has risen across Asia, we zoom in onto a narrow zone of interest, a college campus nestled snugly between the Western Ghats, a campus in football crazy Kerala, the National Institute of Technology, Calicut... know to some as the Calicut Regional Engineering College. The English Premier League is very much an "in-thing" down here as well. When I stepped into this campus a good four years back, I was an avid football fan, the EPL in particular. Four years down the line, I still am an avid fan. In fact, several times along the way, I've crossed the thin line separating a fan from a fanatic. On this journey, there have been a few moments when the magic of football has made me delirious with joy, a few others when I've been forced to pull the ample hair off my head by the bushels. I have not been alone in experiencing these moments of joy and sorrow, there exists a large community of diehard football fans here who have shared this journey with me.

Some of these EPL Weekenders have been at it for a pretty long time, veterans whose experices span a period of more than five years. But the majority are those who were initially attracted by the wild celebrations or protests of the veteran crowd in front of a common room television, and then entranced by the scintillating displays of skill by the masters of the game itself. Most of the old crowd are fans of the old guns in Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal, but inductees over the last couple of years have tended to go the Chelsea way.

Every hostel has its own commom room and festive occassions but the focus of my analysis will be the D-Hostel common room whose strategic location, confluence of cultures and luxury seating facilities make it the mother of all "venues". The proceedings usually begin at around five in the evening on Saturdays and by seven on Sundays. People begin to flock to the room after their dinner, the early ones end up getting the cushioned seats, while the rest make themselves comfortable on the tiled floor. Matches involving the big four are usually the most attended, but others have a pretty good viewership as well. As John Dykes and his team of seasoned professional commentators go about doing an admirable job setting up a match, one can actually feel the anticipation and tension building up within the room. The first few minutes are the most nervy, the silence is usually heavy and eyes transfixed on the action. The matches are usually of a very high quality and moments of delight or despair aren't very hard to come by. Each match is like a 90 minute rollercoaster ride, with the resulting emotions being a heady feeling of euphoria or like a kick in the guts, depending on the result. Within a measley 15 minutes, the next match begins and the ride begins all over again. Ever wondered why some students look so exhausted on a Monday morning?

Even among such high quality matches, there exist a few that lie under the classics section, matches that caused massive turmoil among the lucky few that watched them. In the following section I've listed down some of these classics, a few matches that will continue to remain long in my memory.
( Disclaimer : I am an avid Manchester United fan. If the matches listed below seem to be heavily biased, well... that's because they are... )

1) Man Utd 1 - 1 Porto : The match when an 87th minute Costinha goal knocked United out of the Champions League. The match is also the one where Jose Mourinho, the "special" one, first appeared in the spotlight of world interest.
2) Man Utd 2 - 0 Arsenal : The match where Arsenal's 49 match unbeaten streak was brought to a screeching halt. Nistelrooy and Rooney on target in a match that resulted in United fans giving Arsenal fans several sleepless nights with their incessant taunts.
3) Arsenal 2 - 4 Man Utd : The reverse fixture, one of Uniteds all time great results. Effectively killed off Arsenal's title hopes and left United fans celebrating a remarkable match, probably the best EPL match on display in these four years.
4) Arsenal 0 - 0 Man Utd : The FA Cup final where Arsenal stole the cup from under United's noses through penalties after being completely outplayed over the 120 minutes of vintage United football.
5) Arsenal 2 - 2 Chelsea : Another classic that remains in memory for the sheer class of the displays by the two teams as well as Thierry Henry's audacious opportunistic goal.
6) Barcelona - Chelsea encounters : Two years, four matches and plenty of controversy. The encounters that had emotions riding on all time highs, a testament to the genius we know as Ronaldinho.
7) Man Utd 1 - 0 Chelsea : My best moment as a United fan after the FA Cup win at Wembley. Chelsea were shown to be fallible, they were human after all. Another unbeaten run, this time 39 matches, goes up in smoke at the Theatre of Dreams.
8) Liverpool 3 - 3 AC Milan : An unforgettable match where Liverpool stunned the world by overturning a 3-0 deficit and then went on to take the Champions League Trophy on penalties. The first English Club to win the trophy since the "Miracle at the Camp Nou".

Some of us take the EPL beyond our common rooms. Fantasy football fever is an ingenius concept that has helped in raising both viewership as well as the knowledge of a viewer with regard to the League. The concept is simple; on a fixed budget, build your own dream team and see how your selection does, and maybe even win the prizes on offer. The sheer amount of research some of my adversaries do to figure out the best selections is indicated by this simple statistic; http://fantasy.premierlague.com/ is among the most visited sites in our institute trailing only bigshots like google, orkut, yahoo and espnstar. Also, the volumes of enthusiasts turning up at the institute grounds in the evenings are steadily increasing, a cursory look at the football ground at around six in the evening will answer all doubters. The English Premier League has played a pretty important role in arousing their interests and getting them to make the daunting journey to the pebble filled ground where injuries are as commonplace as goals.

The EPL is here to stay, the EPL fanatics are going to be a part and parcel of our institute for a long time to come. It may not quite match up to the popularity of cricket yet, as demonstrated by the South Africa-Australia match, but it is a phenomenon that can no longer be relegated to the confines of the also rans. Salute the new Era in Sports Entertainment, say Ave to The Barclays Bandwagon.

- Arun C. Pullat
S8 CSE, MUFC forever.
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