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A football revolution at the heart of Chennai! A story of how a few individuals from Vyasarpadi started a football club to keep their young ones away from drug abuse and gang wars.

Meet the ‘Patan Girls’ – A group of talented footballers who have taken the Gujarat state football scene by storm.

Is Gujarat the next big destination for Indian football? We ask the stakeholders about the football revolution that has taken over the cricket-loving state.
Title | Create Date | Author | Excerpt |
---|---|---|---|
Victor Manjila: The graceful daredevil who made goalkeeping an art | 2021-12-28 | Kalpanthu | Is that Spiderman? No, it is Victor Manjila; K.G. Raghunandanan profiles former Indian international goalkeeper Victor Manjila. |
Tamil Nadu vs Chennai: A Football Revolution in Limbo | 2021-12-01 | Kalpanthu | Vishnu Prasad writes about the tsunami-style inundation of the football ecosystem in Tamil Nadu and Chennai. |
Mizoram football needs your attention now! | 2021-11-12 | Arka Bhattacharya | The brilliant Arka Bhattacharya traverses the length and breadth of the Mizoram football ecosystem in this article which can only be categorised as essential/obligatory/mandatory reading. |
Ukhrul, Manipur: Taking baby steps in Football | 2021-10-18 | Kalpanthu | Amidst WWI, every game Ukhrul’s Ruichumhao and his Manipur Labour Corps Company played in France brought them 90 minutes closer to home. |
Was Inder Singh India’s greatest forward? | 2021-09-22 | Kalpanthu | Nicknamed “Bullet Train” by the Japanese, Inder Singh an inside right forward who was not only a brilliant goal scorer, but also a scorer of barely believable goals. |
What’s going wrong with Pune’s football culture? | 2021-08-20 | Kalpanthu | Tanay surveys Pune’s complicated relationship with top-level football and lack of an organised football culture. |
Vamos, Vamos, Argentina: An Eternal Drought ends for Kerala’s Argentina Fans | 2021-07-18 | Kalpanthu | This past Sunday as cries of ‘Vamos’ reverberated across Maracana, a similar mix of relief, jubilation and vindication was sweeping across Kerala. For the sky-blue and white half of the state, Vishu had come early! |
Samantha Kerr’s Calcutta Connection | 2021-06-10 | Kalpanthu | Sam was 15 years old when she made her debut for the Matildas – she called herself ‘crap’ in her first interview with The Guardian. |
Vuvuzela: Edition 1, May 14, 2021 – Hello World! Explaining Kalpanthu’s Newsletter Vuvuzela | 2021-05-23 | Nevin Thomas | Before we begin the 24-edition series, I wanted to introduce Kalpanthu to the uninitiated. |
Football is a way of life in Vada Chennai’s Vyasarpadi | 2019-10-06 | Nevin Thomas | In Vada Chennai, the beautiful game is intertwined with the history of the place and through football, the folks here seek respite from the prejudices that cloud their little neighbourhood. |
Getting Lost in the Great Indian Football Tussle | 2019-04-12 | Nevin Thomas | The football fans in the country are caught in a classic Devil vs the Deep Blue Sea conundrum – who do we side with when both seem awfully corrupt? |

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- Victor Manjila: The graceful daredevil who made goalkeeping an art
Kalpanthu, 28th December 2021
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Nevin is a documentary filmmaker and an award-winning multimedia journalist with a decade-long experience in the News media industry. He has worked with The Hindu, Firstpost and other major publications in the past.
In 2019, he founded Kalpanthu – a unique multimedia platform that features untold narratives from Indian football. Through a video channel and a subscription-based newsletter that features leading sports journalists, Kalpanthu has highlighted stories at the intersection of sports, politics and culture over the past 3 years.
“Personal is political” has been the foundation of Nevin’s much-acclaimed works such as Remembering Ockhi (on survivors of a cyclone) and Happy Aano (a deep-dive into the complexities of Kerala’s politics).
Nevin has a Masters degree in Media & Cultural Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai). He is also an established video producer and digital campaigns specialist. He has consulted for Wimbledon, Premier League India and Sportskeeda in the past. Nevin comes from a marginalised community and seeks to bring diversity and inclusivity into digital reporting.
He is a pop-culture enthusiast and believes in the power of art to shape the world.