Concrete Bowl Returns: Day 1
Concrete Bowl, the Footer Volley Tournament of the Ramanujan Hostel (aka OH) returned this past week with a bang ( before being halted with a rain filled whimper). We at JokaTimes caught up with a PGP1 and “enthu” footer player, Amrutanshu Mishra and asked him to report for us on the first day of action at the OH Quad…
Yellow halogens flooded the area as the crowds cheered the arriving teams into the arena. Before you go off wondering which movie I am describing this scene I would like to clarify that this is not from any movie (from amongst the ones I know off) , ‘tis merely but a scene of the opening night of the OH Footer tournament, the patented sport of IIM Calcutta.
Each year, teams representing each level of all the guys’ wings take part for the coveted title of OH Footer champions. This year with a new batch of PGP1s adorning the scene, the tournament opened to a spectacular start. Lined up on the first day were the reigning champions H2 Top (aka MOT), with their ace player Nakul Singh Pangtey leading the attack with his precision high speed serves and Naresh Krishnaswamy with his killer headers from the net. Up against them were MOKK the team from H4 Bot comprising exclusively of PGP1s. The champions showed the stuff they were made of when the steam rolled their way through the first set winning 15-5.
The next set saw an initial fightback from MOKK, but alas it was not to be their day, as Nakul Pangtey had other plans lined up for them. Serving unreturnable serves he smashed through 10 serves in a row before MOKK could break the flow! But unfortunately they could not hold on to their serves and once MOT got the serve back they wrapped up the match in two sets. The scoreline read 15-5,15-5 a rather unfortunate result for MOKK but the scoreline belied the great performance by some members of MOKK, like the captain Gregory and Zubin.
The next match was that of KBS the team from H4 Mid, runners up last year take on the new entrants NOH, the kichidi put together from from Tata Hall & VLMP hostels. The first set was a blink and miss it affair with KBS going for a 5 member 2-3 attack as opposed to NOH’s 3-3 attack. NOH gave away 8 points before registering themselves on the scorecard, with team communication proving a big problem. First time captain Nikhil was not able to get his coordinations strategies right and NOH spent most of the time looking at each other after the ball had landed rather than the ball itself. KBS finished the match in less than 20 mins in an extremely professional manner leaving team NOH flabbergasted with the scoreline reading 15-2,15-1.
It is at this point that your truly remembered that he had a class the next day and rushed to dive into his bed. Thus ended my opening night, by no means the end, of the OH Footer Championships, the flagship event of Ramanujan Hostel.
Amrutanshu Mishra
Update: Underworld aka H2-Bot won their first match against HPaxx (H3 Bot) with a convincing scoreline of 15-5, 15-8. In the surprise of the day, MoKK learnt from their defeat earlier in the day to stun (a decidedly weakened) Chandini Bar (H3-Mid) with a scoreline of 15-12, 15-1! Captain Gregory, Keshav and Gunjan were inspirational as the team of PGP1s took last year’s semifinalists to cleaners. Chandini Bar captain Justin promised an improved showing in the next game… against smiling assassin Pangtey’s MOT.
Update2: As Rain Gods put paid to hopes of running a tournament on schedule, the New Hostel started its own footer Tournament, Flash Gordon, yesterday. We at JokaTimes have a source extremely close on the hand and will bring you updates from both footer tournaments as they progress. Time to leather some leather!
July 19th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Great reporting. Keep us updated
July 28th, 2009 at 2:48 am
feels nice to read about this!
July 29th, 2009 at 4:14 am
Concrete bowl…
Waiting for more….
August 5th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
2nd day …………… waiting
September 11th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Really miss the OH footer volley scene