East Bengal Club is one of the best-known football clubs of Kolkata. It has a great contribution in the field of Kolkata sports. In the year 1920, this club was formed. However, later in 1998, East Bengal Club was renamed as the Kingfisher East Bengal Football Club. This is because United Breweries has 50% share in the club.
East Bengal Club is popularly known as "The Red and Gold Brigade" among the residents of Calcutta. Salt Lake Stadium is the home ground of this club. Presently, Carlos Roberto Pereira Da Silva is the coach of East Bengal Club.
In the year 1942, this club won the first league title. Next year, it won the IFA Shield. Since then, the club is performing better and better. East Bengal Club has acquired a wide range of popularity for winning the National Football League.
The greatest achievements of the club also include its extra-ordinary performances in Asian level football tournament. Among other achievements, the most remarkable are:
- 2003 ASEAN Club Championship
- 30x Calcutta Super Division
- 3x National Football League
- 27x IFA Shield
- 16x Durand Cup
- 4x Federation Cup
In the year 1953, the Romania Youth Festival Committee invited this club to participate in their football tournament that was held at Bucharest. Presently, this club is said to be one of the best soccer clubs of India. While talking about this club, it should also be mentioned that East Bengal Club is the first Indian club that represented the country in the football tournament of the Asian Club Cup. In this particular tournament it has represented its country for 8 times.
Masood Fakri a player of this Club was the first
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footballer from Asia to play professionally in England. After him, the name that strikes our mind is Bhaichung Bhutia. In 1993, the East Bengal Club won Wai Wai Cup and later in 2003, the club won ASEAN Club Cup.
In 1970, Pas Club, Iran was defeated by the East Bengal Club, whereas, in 1973, a Korean club of Piyong Young was defeated by East Bengal. This club scored 36 goals in I.F.A. League, 1946. Till now, no other club has been able to break this record.
Some of the Indian footballers who played in this club are Byomkesh Bose, Appa Rao, Ahmed Khan, Salleh, P. Venkatesh, Balaram, Sanat Sett, Taj Mohammed, Prasanta Sinha, Md. Habib, Syed Nayeemuddin and Sudhir Karmakar. Some of the trophies won by this club are:
- The National League, 2000-2001
- Federation Cup, 1978
- Durand Cup, 1951
- D.C.M.,1950
- Rover's Cup, 1949
- D.C.M.,1950
Year 1924, is marked as a memorable year for this club. In this year it performed very well in the Second Division and also accumulated fund for setting up Sir Asutosh Mukherjee's statue at Chowringhee.
Many of the noted personalities were members of this Club. Some of them are Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Kapil Dev and Navjot Suingh Sidhu.
The famous players who had contributed greatly to this club are J. Sarkar, Mona (Ramesh) Dutta, Surja Chakravarty, Dulal Guha Thakurta, Lakshminarayan and Sunil Ghosh.
At present, the President of this club is Dr. Pranab Dasgupta, whereas, Sri Kalyan Majumdar is the General Secretary. Sri Debabrata Sarkar, Sri Ashish Sarkar and Sri Mihir Samaddar are some of the executive committee members of East Bengal Club.
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