All India Railway football tournament begins in Patna; ECR lose to NCR

Patna, February 4, 2011: The 67th All India Railway football championships began at the Moinul Haq Stadium here on Friday. On the opening day two matches were played. In the first match of the day North Central Railway (NCR), Allahabad, crushed East Central Railway (ECR), Hajipur 5-1.

In the second match, South East Central Railway (SECR), Bilaspur, swamped Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW), Varanasi, 5-0.

Six zonal teams have been participating in the weeklong event. The matches are being played on round-robin league basis. Top two teams will qualify for the final phase of the tournament to be played in Bilaspur.

Teams are EC Railway (Hajipur), South East Central Railway (Bilaspur), North Central Railway (Allahabad), RDSO (Lucknow), Integral Coach Factory (Chennai) and Diesel Locomotive Works (Varanasi).

Sunil Mishra scored the first goal for NCR Allahabad in the 22nd minute (1-0). NCR struck two more goals in the first half through Md Asif (25th minute) and Rakesh Yadav (28th minute). Apurva Nandy brought some cheers in ECR camp scoring a goal in the 38th minute (3-1).

After the breather, Sunil Mishra pumped in two more goals to take the final tally to 5-1.

In the second match SECR took a 2-0 lead in the first half.

Suber Manjhi (8th minute) GC Hansda (25th minute), A Anthony (63rd minute), RC Murmur (65th minute) and Suber Manjhi (85th minute) were the goalgetters for SECR.

Earlier, General Manager of East Central Railway, KK Shrivastav inaugurated the championships. AK Chandra, general secretary, ECR Sports Association, welcomed the guests and participants.

Photo captions: From top: ECR and NCR fight for the ball; EC Railway GM KK Shrivastav releasing the balloons to inaugurate the Railway football championships; ECR GM KK Shrivastav being introduced to the players at the Moinul Haq Stadium in Patna on February 4, 2011.

Photo: Aftab Alam Siddiqui