Not new to blackouts during floodlit matches, football fans today got a taste of it again when a local premier division league match between Mohun Bagan and George Telegraph was halted due to an outage for about 16 minutes.
Trailing 0-1 from a Taurus Mane first-half goal, the frenzied Mohun Bagan camp was lit up after Katsumi Yusa brought on the equaliser in the 72nd minute at the Vidyasagar Krirangan in Barasat.
However, the celebrations were cut short after two of the four floodlights went off at the stadium, plunging it into near darkness.
Stadium officials blamed it on a "line fault" as there was no disruption of electricity. It took about 16 minutes to restore power to the two floodlights.
"It's not at all good advertisement for Kolkata football," Bagan coach Karim Bencherifa said after the team failed to earn full points following the 1-1 draw.
Power outages are not new, especially to the crowd at Yuba Bharati Krirangan at Salt Lake, where a Mohun Bagan-East Bengal I-League match was disrupted following a blackout in November, 2011.
