Milled into submission

It was in 1970,during the Santosh Trophy Championship in Punjab,when MM Thapar,football enthusiast and president of JCT Mills,watched Punjab win the title. So enamoured was he with the way the players performed that he immediately summoned GS Virk,sports supervisor at the factory,and announced his decision to form a team. With two existing football giants in Punjab Leaders Club (founded by Lala Dwarkadas,considered the premium club of Punjab before it was closed in 1976 due to Lalas death) and Border Security Force Sporting Club Virk struggled to lure players to JCT. So,eventually,he turned to college kids playing football,offered them jobs at the factory,training them at the ground where millmen enjoyed their leisure hours. Among them was Sukhwinder Singh,considered one of the best coaches to have graced the Indian national team,who found the club to his liking.

We joined JCT because we had the freedom to take breaks for exams and studies,something not enjoyed at Leaders Club, shares Sukhwinder,who was joined by GS Parmar and Parminder Singh. But a big name was missing and JCT often needed recommendations from other clubs to participate in competitions. Since,we were a new club,peoples sympathies were with us. But we struggled in the first two-three years, Sukhwinder,who had to leave the club for two years in between on disciplinary grounds,recalls.

The ascent

In 1973,for the first time,JCT handed contracts to two top players,Parminder and Parmar. Their fortunes changed with the arrival of Inder Singh and other fine and young talent in 1974.

Inder was already a big name in Punjab football,being part of the Indian team that played in the Asian All Star team in 1967. His impressive performance had caught the attention of the Malaysian Prime Minister who invited him to join their national team,but Inder,who wanted to help the Indian team do well,refused. I got dream offers from Mohun Bagan and East Bengal,but I wanted to play in Punjab, Inder recalls.

Though the team lost to Mohun Bagan in the 1974 Durand Cup final,their owner was undeterred. To reach the final of a big tournament in just three years was big. The team sensed success and we continued to press hard each following season, said Inder about his breakthrough year the same when Punjab won the Santosh Trophy again. Inder,as captain,netted 23 goals out of 46,a record which still stands. Led by GS Virk who brought out the best from the local talent,their impressive run continued as JCT reached four successive Durand Cup finals from 74.

Still not satisfied with all the glory and titles the team was winning at national level,Thapar sought the assistance of British coach Robert Allison Bootland in 1983. JCT,besides Churchill and Dempo soon boasted of only team to have a foreign coach.

Till the 90s,JCT had stuck to the theory of relying on local players only they were a rare Indian club to have their own academy. Their stalwarts were growing old and though new players were winning titles,the long impending need to reconsider the theory was always round the corner. Big-spending clubs from Goa and Bengal could attract players from JCT but things changed with the arrival of Sukhwinder as coach in 1991.

A year before that,Samir Thapar took over as president from his father,MM Thapar. Though the shrewd and tactically superior Sukhwinder won the Durand Cup in his first assignment,the young Thapar loosened his purse,giving the coach the freedom to buy the best talent in the country,reversing the trend of other clubs luring their players.

He said enough is enough,for JCT kept producing talented players while others enjoyed the benefit of our years of hard work. This needed to stop and he reckoned that if they can buy our players,we could also buy theirs, said the former coach.

A staggering amount of Rs 60 lakh was spent buying Bhaichung Bhutia and IM Vijayan Indias hottest names at that time. They could lure Jo Paul Ancheri,Carlton Chapman among others and built a team of repute still considered the dream-team JCT has ever fielded. It was a huge problem to work with big players and here we were with so many stars! But its an honour to have Bhutia and Vijayan play for the same club apart from the Indian team, beams Sukhwinder as the team went down in history books as the inaugural NFL champions.

The dream team of 1995 and 96 won every title Durand Cup,Federation Cup,National Football League,Sait Nagjee Cup,Scissors Cup and Rovers Cup all over India as well as being the first club outside Bengal to win the IFA Shield. But the 1996 mass exodus of players nearly brought the team on the brink as Indias first pro-club FC Kochin bought top stars from the team,and JCT had to start from scratch.

There was still trouble as new teams from Mumbai,Goa and Bengal continued to prey their players. We became a feeder club again. The trend of spending money on players had begun with JCT. And though we won around 60 lakh in cash prize from all tournaments,we had to spend on other top players from India,Thapar opted go back to grooming local players, said Sukhwinder.

The process was slow and energy-sapping,even as JCTs fortunes plummeted. Though they always finished mid-table in the National Football  League (renamed I-League from 2006),the team could never repeat the success that their predecessors of 80s and the 95-96 batch produced,and the title-closet went barren. Vijayan and Ancheris reunion with JCT briefly in 2002 did nothing to change the situation. The charm about the 1995-96 team was that fans treated us as their own and we were loved and cheered in every game. That had changed when we returned to the club for a second time, said Ancheri.

However,the signing of Sunil Chhetri and Chidi Edeh in 2006 did revive chances as they finished runners-up to Dempo SC in the Durand Cup in 2006-07. Though the team was never in title contention since,soon Chhetri and Chidi too were poached. Young academy players had started to figure in starting XI and with five of their key men travelling to Wolverhampton Academy,there was some promise in the air of a revival.

The real jolt came in 2009-10 when seven of their top local players left the struggling club and virtually brought the club on its knees. The club never recovered from that, Parminder says. That was the final nail in the coffin as the team struggled to keep their head above water in the last season and precipitated into relegation.

Though the team management and fans are hopeful that support would come and JCT would once again see the light of day,it remains to be seen what happens to players from Punjab who graduate from the academies and need a platform to play in a professional club. Will it sound the death of Punjab football or will it once again rise from the ashes and return to the glory days of the 80s and 90s.