Owen Coyle’s love affair with Indian football has made him a household name among fans in the domestic circuit.
An Indian Super League (ISL) runner-up finish with Chennayin FC, an ISL Shield with Jamshedpur FC and a top-six finish for Marina Machans for the first time in four years last season – Coyle needs no introduction.
However, prior to his first home game with Chennaiyin this season, he chose to reflect on a chapter of Indian football he was introduced to back in Scotland, one that had Mohammed Salim embellished all over it.
Salim, born in Kolkata in 1904, became the first Indian to play for a European club, the Scottish giant Celtic.
Waverley, the then-chief football writer of Scottish daily, Daily Record, broke the news, writing, “His brother is a storekeeper at Elderslie docks and this week he made contact with Willie Maley asking that Bachchi, who is here on holiday be given a run out with Celts.”
“The Celtic manager agreed to give our coloured visitor a place in a trial game, and he took the field sans boots, sans shinguards. And played a delightful game. His crosses to the goalmouth were pictures.”
In his debut, he set up at least three goals in a 7-1 victory over Galston in 1936.
Team against Galston
“He balances the ball on his big toe, lets it run down the scale to his little toe, twirls it, hops on one foot around the defender, then flicks the ball to the centre who has only to send it into goal,” read a report about him on Scottish daily Glasgow Observer.
Against Hamilton, he scored from the spot in a 6-0 win.
“The barefooted Indian biffed the ball hard to the left of the goalkeeper who, although managing to get his hand to it, was totally unable to prevent it going into the net,” Daily Record reported.
Team against Hamilton
What set him apart, beyond his exploits of setting up goals as a winger, was that he played barefoot – a trait completely alien to the British folks there.
Salim earned the moniker ‘the Indian Juggler’ during his time in Scotland, with Daily Record publishing a powerful picture of Celtic’s famous trainer Jimmy McMenemy wrapping Salim’s bare feet and ankles with bandages before the game.
“He fairly hypnotised the opposing defenders, and seven goals were actually the outcome of his moves. Foreign footballers are by no means rare. But all have played in the regulation boots,” reads a chapter from Alan Breck’s Book Of Scottish Football.
“Salim preferred to stick to his native way, and, what is more, he ‘saw the boots off’ the other fellows. His accuracy in shooting and ball control greatly tickled the crowd.”
Salim earned the moniker ‘the Indian Juggler’ during his time in Scotland, with Daily Record publishing a powerful picture of Celtic’s famous trainer Jimmy McMenemy wrapping Salim’s bare feet and ankles with bandages before the game. | Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Though Salim returned to India shortly after the friendly games for reportedly being homesick, his bare-footed magic remains the lasting impression among generations of Scotsmen, including Coyle, who was born about three decades after that Galston game.
And the club Salim was most associated with in India, was Mohammedan, with whom he won five consecutive Calcutta Football League titles.
“I think Mohammedan is a club that is enriched by the fabric of Indian football. It had a player who played for Glasgow Celtic for a long time and at that time, he played bare-footed,” Coyle told reporters, struggling to remember his name.
And the same club, newly promoted to the ISL this season, stands in the way of Chennaiyin – coached by Coyle – looking to impress in its first home game this season.
In the 1930s, an Indian had won hearts in Scotland through football. Nearly a century later, a Scotsman will look to complete the circle, in India, on Thursday.
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