Trailblazers go down memory lane as India hosts AFC Women's Asian Cup

“I tell you, I played football every evening on the beach, but it was only when the Nationals were held in Goa in 1979, that I realised there were women who played football,” Maria Rebello laughs. India’s first FIFA listed woman referee is a pathbreaker, but one still in awe of women who inspired her love for the beautiful game. “Yolanda De Sousa, Succorinha Pereira, Shanti Mullick… legends. I didn’t take football seriously, not till I saw these ladies play. Don’t ask me about the games. I just remember the goals.”

And those goals are a complete memory. Yolanda can replay them play-by-play even today. She scored them four decades ago, a young girl studying art, daughter of the famous Joveniano de Sousa, pre-independence star of the Tata Sports Club in Bombay. Of course she played football. 

Women's team playing a friendly against the Swedish club side in 1976 in Sultanpur | Courtesy: Yolanda De Sousa

“When you’re young, you play sport,” she casually says. In 1976, the newly formed Women’s Football Federation of India (WFFI) held the first ever Nationals, in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh. “Happy hunting ground” are the words she uses to remember them. She scored hat-tricks throughout the tournament, the highest scorer by a mile, despite Goa losing to Bengal in the final. “Many girls from that team were called for the India camp. I remember people coming up and saying we played better football… and Bengal just came to block and win.”

Yolanda De Sousa in action | Courtesy: Yolanda De Sousa

Shanti Mullick smiles when confronted with this review. “Maybe we did. She’s right. We did want to win. For us, circumstances were different.” If Yolanda’s greatness is defined by folklore, Mullick’s is a matter of public record. She started playing in Kolkata as a kid — another footballing haven of the time — her father her first coach. “They’ll say that West Bengal has a lot of sports today,” she says. “But it’s a lie. When I started playing, in the same stadium, at the same time there’d be cyclists, athletes, pole vaulters, every kind of sportsperson imaginable. Let’s not talk about the present though… I don't have the vocabulary.”

Growing up around this diversity, Mullick, understandably did it all. She started off as a sprinter, graduated to handball, took to football, dabbled in cricket, shifted to hockey, before, incredibly, switching over to sepaktakraw. Normal human beings play sport for leisure. Professional athletes go on to represent their states, provinces or employees. The rare few elite athletes represent their countries in a sport of their choosing. Shanti Mullick has represented India in football, hockey and sepaktakraw (“I was called to the cricket team, but I didn’t go… football was my love at that time”). 

But there’s a darker theme to this shifting of sports. Women’s sport was an afterthought, an anomaly and there was little in terms of opportunity or interest. It was a time when neither the All India Football Federation (AIFF) nor FIFA recognised the women’s game. Those that played it were renegades, counter culture revolutionaries spreading a message around the world. National associations, independent of Ministries, and global bodies banded together to take women’s football to the mainstream. And right at the centre of this revolution were the women from India. 

Women’s team playing a friendly against the Swedish club side in 1976 in Sultanpur | Courtesy: Yolanda De Sousa

In 1980, right after those Goa Nationals, India hosted the third edition of the AFC Asian Women’s Championships (rebranded to the AFC Women’s Asian Cup) in Calicut. Yolanda and Mullick were part of a team that finished runners up in the tournament. To date it remains India’s best ever result at the Asian stage. Those women, and the result itself remains forgotten.

Chitra Gangadharan, the goalkeeper of that squad, remembers it as being a tumultuous period for the sport globally, the repercussions of which hit India hard. “WFFI gave a lot of support, but globally not being recognised by FIFA meant most tournaments went under the radar,” she says. “There were so many tournaments at the national level in those days, but very few internationally. Those held, went unnoticed.”

India even played at a World Invitational tournament — a World Cup of sorts — in 1981, where, according to Yolanda they “severely underperformed, because of indiscipline, behaving like tourists”. A lot of history was made but also quickly forgotten. 

Shanti Mullick at her coaching camp in Rabindra Sarobar | Photo credit: Vaibhav Raghunandan

In 1983, Mullick was awarded the Arjuna award in football — the first Indian woman, and in fact one of only two to have got the honour to date. A year later she quit the game on a matter of principle. “In those days, we were paid 5 rupees a game. The team’s performances had started attracting a lot of attention. I asked the federation to raise the allowance to 20 rupees. They refused. And then they threatened to drop me from the team if I kept it up.”

In 1988, FIFA, having taken charge of the women’s game globally, held the first ever World Cup — a test event of sorts. Several national federations followed suit. It also meant that many — the AIFF included — expunged all historical records of the women’s game in India prior to 1992. Everything Mullick, Yolanda, Chitra and their pathbreaking colleagues achieved was deemed non-existent.

“In my opinion that initial boom in women’s football was never captured and capitalised on. When that merger happened, a huge amount was lost,” Yolanda says. “The men given charge of the game were just not interested in women’s football. Any success we had, any headstart we made, just crashed. They had to start from scratch.”

Yolanda walked away from the game much before the drama, to turn her attention to her art. She lives in Goa with her family. 

Mullick and Chitra remain attached to the sport they love, but in different ways. Gangadharan is the head coach of BUFC women in Bengaluru and has been goalkeeping coach with the Indian team in the past. Mullick remains attached to the grassroots, coaching underprivileged children at the Rabindra Sarobar stadium in Kolkata. The training is free of cost and, most importantly, co-ed. Mullick does not believe in segregation to teach football. 

All three await the latest renaissance of women’s football in India, as the country prepares to host the AFC Women’s Asian Cup later this month. But they do so with trepidation, fully aware of how chances are thrown away. “It’s good. But there’s a lot to do. Even today, our girls struggle to get games at the lower levels,” Mullick says. “They don’t get paid enough. There are hardly any jobs in women’s football.... no incentive for a young girl to play the sport.”

Field notes

Slotted in Group A, India will face Iran, China and Chinese Taipei at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2022. India are the third highest ranked team in the group (World ranking 55) behind China (19) and Chinese Taipei (39). Led by Ashalata Devi, and coached by former Sweden and Nigeria manager Thomas Dennerby, India qualified for the tournament as hosts for the first time since 2003. Their best results have been in 1980 and 1983, where they finished as runners-up. India play Iran in their opener on June 20.  

Game on

India vs Iran: Jan 20

India vs Chinese Taipei: Jan 23

India vs China: Jan 26