Jerry JOY
Correspondent (Dubai)

It’s the year 1999. The year remains crystal clear in my mind. It’s the year during which I get introduced to the internet and come to know about this wonderful search engine known as Google in my first ever brush with Internet. And what was the first search that I ever did on Google? Indian Football!!! And what comes up?? Indianfootball.com and the mailing group. That’s the day my love affair started off with IFC.

My love for football has a lot to do with my early upbringing being in Saudi Arabia which could be categorized as a soccer crazy country and hardly any other sport being played at my school other than football. To top that the other sports events hardly used to get a mention in the local papers in Saudi Arabia and it was always football which would dominate the sports pages! Sadly for Indian Football quite similar to the way cricket hogs the limelight in Indian papers now a days!!

You could say I was interested & impressed by international football so when did my love affair with Indian Football start? To be precise the First Gulf war when I spent about 2-3 months in India and the Santhosh Trophy being won by Kerala during that period and the so called beginning of the golden age of Kerala football. I returning back to Kerala in 1994 and during these time we had regular local tournaments such the Mammen Mapillai, Sait Nagee, Scissors Cup, etc. back home which increased my love of Indian football and the excitement of seeing these games at the stadiums among thousands of soccer crazy .fans along with the rise of IM Vijayan in Indian football and FC Kochin off to a flying start the love of Indian football became a part of my life.

By the time I reached my engineering days I always used to feel why can`t get India get 11 good players among this population and have a place among the elite at the world cup!! And that’s when I discovered IFC and an outlet which really had the good of Indian Football at its heart and nothing else. From 1999 – 2003 I was part of the mailing group and then after settling down in my job in Dubai I had loads of spare time and decided that I had to contribute to Indian Football and what better way than to contribute through IFC.

To say the truth IFC has contributed much more to me than I contributing back to IFC! If it was not for IFC I would have been an arm chair critic critizing about Indian Football rather than getting up, going out and doing things in whatever way I could and being more aware of the state of Indian football. I have enjoyed each & every minute of my stay with IFC and the experiences I have had with Bob Houghton & the Indian team each time they been down to Dubai.

Thanks to IFC for changing me from an arm chair critic to person who could contribute in a minute way to Indian football!