The Curious case of Kanteerva

A Curious Case at the Kanteerava

As a vivid football fan, all you want is to have a football team from where you belong. In my

case, we wanted a club from Odisha. This is what we dreamt of. I still remember, being mocked

by my Bengali roommates for not having a football club and Odisha never being a part of the

footballing entity. The pecks were light-hearted, but felt like splinters piercing through blood

vessels.

When pen was finally put to paper regarding Odisha FC's inception, we let out a huge sigh of

relief and were really contented to finally have our own club. I called many of my like-minded

and football enthusiastic friends and asked for their help to build a loyal fan base. This is how

we started the East Indian Block. Amit and I, with the help of few more close friends, started this

fan club and the sole motto was to do everything possible to make people aware that we have a

state club to root for and we will seek their support for the team. By that time we created the fan

club, we came to know one more fan club was already working for the same cause since the

last couple of months and they were the Juggernauts. We spoke to them and found out that

they also echoed the same motto that we had. Most importantly we found that they were a

perfect amalgam of hard work and modesty which was quite impressive. The amount of effort

they were giving was unimpeachable. They had a perfect roadmap for the season and we

couldn't stop ourselves from being a part of them.

Now as I am a techie working in Bengaluru for the last 5 years, I became a part of Juggernauts

Bengaluru Chapter and Amit became a part of Juggernauts Odisha. This is how EIB became

Juggernauts Bengaluru.

Now coming to Juggernauts Bengaluru chapter, we only had a handful of people at that time to

support us. It was me, Ronny, Lokesh, Manas, Simahdri who started Juggernauts Bengaluru

chapter. We used to meet every weekend to prepare the road map for the January 22, BFC vs

OFC at Kanteerava stadium.

No doubt it was a mountainous ask! We did almost everything to make people aware of the

match and tried every possible way to pull them in stands. We approached almost all the Odia

Committees here in Bangalore, went to PGs and hostel to make students aware of the same.

We also did an online campaign to motivate people, but unfortunately, we didn't get the support

we wanted. Bringing Odia football fans to the stadium was becoming a tenacious task for us.

For context, we are targeting to accumulate 300 Odia fans against the 30000 backing BFC.

Meanwhile, we got the help from Pritikanta Sir (Shubham Sarangi's father). The amount of

energy he brings in is believable only when seen upfront. He constantly motivated us and gave

us some inputs which he did in Hyderabad and Pune matches. To be honest he has helped us

achieve the impossible. The week before the match was quite tiring, we were exhausted but the

only thing which kept us going was ODISHA.

The D day had arrived: January 22 BFC vs OFC. We expected somewhere around 250-300

away supporters and this was a decent number. When we entered the Kanteerava, the

ambience was insane. We were facing the mighty West Block blues.

For a fan club which was 2-3 months old, we lacked coordination, which was inevitable, but we

kept cheering, shouting, and screeching for 95 odd minutes. Even though we were 3 goals

down we didn't allow the energy to enervate. We wanted to make our team feel that irrespective

of the outcome, we will support them till the end. We have an adage "We tie until we die" and

we wanted this message to reach others and we were successful in conveying the same.

The overall experience was quite remarkable, we got some new fans who joined our

family(Juggernauts). We did something for which we got appreciated. We cleaned the away

stands, which no other team had ever done till then. We just carried forward the legacy which

started in Bhubaneswar. I still remember after the match a few supporters came and told us "

We need those large TIFOs like the WBB are having for our team next time and we are ready to

contribute anything for the same. Literally, I was the happiest person to hear the same as this is

what you always dreamt of, and eventually, it was getting real.

Next season will be definitely challenging for us and we need all your support to overcome this

challenge. We urge all your support and help us grow as a footballing entity.

Regards

Unsatisfied Techie