Spunky quartet does a soccer Lagaan

What Bhuvan did in Champaner, four friends are doing in Hurhuru.
Like the intrepid farmer in Lagaan, who dared and tamed the British in a game of cricket by uniting a rag-tag bunch of rustic villagers, the quartet from this small hamlet along the Ranchi-Patna highway has formed a football team with a group of labourers, which has bagged the crown almost everytime it has taken the field over the past four years.
It all started in 1998 when four daily-wage labourers - Dileep Yadav, Bahadur Ram, Subodh Paswan and Harish Patel - who practised football at the St Columbus' College grounds decided they would stitch together a team and compete with the best.
Armed with talent, loads of determination and little else, the four men went about forming an eleven. They exhorted labourers of Hurhuru bustee to take up football. Soon, they shortlisted 10 men, who had the grit and the zeal needed to beat the best, and set up a team which they called Hurhuru Sporting Club.
The initial task over, the four friends began hunting for a coach. The first man they approached asked for a salary, which they could not afford. The quartet then got in touch with a footballer of yesteryears Banwari Lal Agarwal, who had excelled in the sport at the college and university levels.
Agarwal agreed to coach the team free of cost, but he had only one condition: the players have to be punctual and must be sincere.
Practice began sharp at 6 am and continued for an hour-and-a-half, after which the footballers went their own ways to earn a living.
For a year, Agarwal persisted with this rigorous schedule. The initial phase was difficult: the players got boots but little else. There was no practice facility to speak of, diet consisted of gram and jaggery. Like Bhuvan, who was the target of taunts of fellow villagers, the team also had to face sniggers from the local people. But the lack of infrastructure and support was made up by the determination to perform.
The hard work started paying dividends within a year. Hurhuru Sporting Club competed in the district championships in 1999 and stunned the more fancied teams with breathtaking skill. "The opposition was simply blown away by the Hurhuru storm. We stormed our way to the championships," says a proud Agarwal.
There was no looking back. The team won all tournaments in sight and established itself as the premier football club of the district.
Midfielder Mahendra says their success has given them self-esteem. "The team is everything to us. It has given us pride and we can see eye-to-eye with the other," he says.
Gopi, who is the backbone of the defence, said they have proved wrong all the "self-styled" pundits who predicted that the team would be a washout because it had no practice facility.
If there's one regret that Agarwal has it's the lack of financial assistance from the administration. The team members - the strength has swelled to 23 - pool in money for practice. Morning-walkers at the college ground also chip in. And some officials of the forest department, whose team is also coached by Agarwal, have also donated.
"If we had sufficient funds, we would have competed at the state and national tournaments. Our players are very good but unfortunately we don't have the money to back up the talent," says Agarwal.