Guwahati: A 1,616 km train journey in the general compartment from Guwahati to Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, followed by a 114 km bus ride to Gwalior in the sultry heat of July 2014. This was the maiden trip of Satyajit Bordoloi, the first Assamese Santosh Trophy champion, outside the state, and perhaps where the seeds of his professional footballing career were sown.
Accompanied by his late father Nakul Bordoloi, the youngster was visiting Gwalior for the medical test of the Laxmibai National Institute of Physical Education (LNIPE), India’s premier institute. Soon after, he became a student there and since then, there has been no looking back for the youngster.
Senior Bordoloi returned home after shifting the youngster to the LNIPE hostel. Satyajit was ‘welcomed’ by seniors, who made him march past for the first month, a tradition that is still applicable to all new students of the institute.
“The first month at the LNIPE was tough. In fact, over the years numerous athletes quit the course after the rigorous first few days. We had gruelling march-past sessions, and classes, followed by training sessions, and again back to those march-past sessions. In the first 30 days, the athletes hardly get a max of four hours of sleep. The morning sessions begin as early as 4 am. It was tough, but that’s the real test and once you pass that phase, your daily routine gradually takes the shape,” Satyajit recounted in a candid interview with EastMojo.
EastMojo’s team recently visited Satyajit’s native Oujari village in Morigaon district, where the goalkeeper is currently on a break after helping Karnataka beat Meghalaya 3-2 in the final held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and eventually lay their hands on the prestigious Santosh Trophy football tournament after 54 years.
Surrounded by lush green paddy fields and a roadside grocery shop, a huge poster displaying Satyajit with the glittering trophy signals our team’s arrival at the destination. With a wide grin and accompanied by a few cousins, the footballer welcomes every visitor before introducing his mother and 10-year-old sister.
The customary greetings were followed by a cup of warm black tea and Bihu delicacies, fuelling the conversation with Satyajit narrating his introduction to the sport by an older cousin when he was in the 9th standard at a local school, and later he led the club to the title in the inter-district tournament.
The win, in a way, made Satyajit believe in his goalkeeping abilities, and three years and multiple local tournaments later, a chance encounter with Ansari Brahma made him rebel against his father’s wish to join the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) in Nagaon. He instead wished to join the LNIPE after completing his Class 12 exams, for which he appeared in the middle of a camp at the Sarusajai Stadium in Guwahati.
“I would travel to Guwahati in the morning to attend the camp and return by afternoon to appear for my 12th exams and study the whole night. It was hectic, but I wanted to remain focused on my footballing career,” he described.
Elaborating further on his foray into the world of professional football, the 27-year-old said he eventually managed to convince his father to try his luck at the LNIPE, where he wanted to pursue a degree course in Physical Education for which he had to travel to Gwalior for the medical test.
But as fate would have it, Satyajit’s father, who served with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), succumbed to cancer in October 2017 before he passed out in 2018, leaving the burden of supporting the family on the teenage footballer’s shoulders.
Discarded by Assam, embraced by Karnataka
Repeated rejections from the Assam selectors left Satyajit dejected. In 2010, he was called for Under-15 trials for the state team but he was not selected, and a few years down the line, he was once again overlooked for the Under-17 trials.
In 2017, when the custodian was selected for the India U-23 team’s trip to Qatar, he failed to board the flight as his passport wasn’t ready on time. He then joined Gokulam Kerala FC for three years and went on to win the Independence Cup and Bodusa Cup with the outfit. He then moved to the Kerala United team for a brief period.
However, featuring in the Santosh Trophy was always at the back of his mind, and with that hope, in 2019, he made another effort to realise his dreams of representing his home state but was once again ignored.
“I had always wanted to play the Santosh Trophy, and for that, I had contacted many associations who wanted local players to represent the respective states. And then I was once again overlooked by my home state, which almost left me shattered,” he said.
During one of his breaks in late 2019, Satyajit received a call from Sporting Club Bengaluru, the Super Division team of Bengaluru, and agreed to join the club only if I was allowed to appear for Santosh Trophy trials.
“Thankfully, Sporting Club Bengaluru agreed, and I was shortlisted for the Santosh Trophy probable list based on performance in a local league. In Karnataka, getting into the state team is pretty simple, it’s purely based on merit,” he commented.
Despite becoming the first player from the state to feature in a Santosh Trophy-winning team, not a single representative of the Assam Football Association has bothered to call him.
“I messaged a lot of people when I landed in Guwahati, but no one has turned up, or given a call,” he said.
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Satyajit has now shifted base to Kolkata, where he will don the colours of Mohammedan Sporting Club in the upcoming I-league season.
Deep inside, however, he eyes a lucrative contract from one of the Indian Super League (ISL) franchisees.
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