Story of Real United

The Real United Champion Trophy 2018 was a phenomenal initiative by the small and newly built-up football club of Sodepur ‘Real United’. It is an organization, where the associates of the club sincerely work towards the development of the club and football.  It was the 2^nd successive year for the Real Cup and they have procured an enormous support from the local administrative level of the state government. Despite the fact that it has only been a while that the club formed its base at Sodepur Goshala but they are quite consistent in their community development related activities. Members like Lal Kamal and Murary Mukhopadhay had a great contribution to form the club in 2010. Since its inception they envisaged to build a well-structured club and eventually their dream came true in 2013, when they finally established their club at Goshala.

Within such short span they have done some incredible contribution towards to the development of the society and football. Real United is not only an ordinary club but it has an immense amount of football culture. Almost all of their members were somehow the part of football in past, whereas Lal Kamal, the former captain of Mohun Bagan is the secretary of the club, on the other hand a great personality and corporate personnel like Mr. Murari Mukhapadhay, who is the general Manger of a reputed International Company,  is the president of the club.

The inside environment of the club is truly electrifying with the present of the real’s members during any national or international match on television, as their emotion to the game is very much well-connected. It’s true that they don’t have enough resources to maintain a standard football academy as per the rule of All India Football Federation, but they opine a farm sporting culture in their organization.

Under the guidance of Mr. Pal, who is considered to be one of the efficient youth football  coach in North 24 parganas for more than a decade, alongside Mr. Prasanta Bhattacahrjee, holding AFC “C” license, conduct their daily practice session at Gosahala football ground. In spite the fact that they don’t have any sponsor or funding, just with very nominal contribution of their own club members they are providing free coach training to all the children aged between U-18. Despite all the difficulties Real United, have some remarkable success stories to share. Master Subham Ghosh, who is the captain of TFA, was a youth development product of Real United, apart from that Master Sandip Oraon (Bardawan SAI), Master Souvik Bhattacharjee (Mohun Bagan - Youth I-League team), Diganta  Mondal (united Sports Club- Youth I-League team)were also the Youth product of Real United.

The hard work and dedication of Real’s associates can be an idol exemplification for those who dream to work for the promotion of the beautiful game. Notwithstanding that although they have shortage of budget, the pang of their unstoppable desire to promote their organization and simultaneously promotion of the game, they had very successfully organized two youth football tournaments for last two years. In one hand they laid their emphasised to engage school students with football, thus they have divided the tournament into two structures, one for the schools, where sixteen schools all across the district took part and on the other hand professional youth clubs like, United Sports Club. East Bengal, Mohun Bagan, ATK and Md. Sporting along with other local academies participated in the tournament.

Such unique and broad perspective has never been considered by any organization in Sodepur for the development of sports culture before the Real United Challenge Cup. Thereby, there was massive response from all spheres, be it administrative level or normal people of the city. On an average more than three thousand spectators turned out to be the part of the final event on 28^th January 2018 where beside the final matches they had also organised a program to offer their condolences to the family of the young footballer, namely Indra who died in a train accident few months back.

The entire concept of showcasing the memory of Indra was indeed a heart touching and emotional event which brought about tears in everyone’s eyes present there. In the presence of great footballers like Sangram Mukherjee and Lal Kamal Bhowmick, the club president felicitated Indra’s parents with huge respect and also telecaste a memorable documentary on Indra before the final match.   

Neither it was an easy accomplishment for the Real members to establish the new club and organise such an impressive youth football tournament, nor will the future task of continuing their good work be a comprehensive factor for them. However, they are quite determined to overcome all the difficulties and pursuit their ultimate goal of taking their organization to the main stream of Indian football and at the same time develops sports culture in our society.