The game of football has many descriptions. In a lighter vein, it is twenty-two men chasing a bag of air for 90 minutes and in the end, the Germans always win, this is a good adage about its nature as a game of sheer spirits and power.
But when we see football as a religion, a result, an ally and an opportunity very few players have been able to achieve all that from the game like OIL FC’s Fazal Haque, a footballer par excellence, all within the span of his eventful life.
Coming from humble origins in Nagaon district, Assam, Fazal Haque (1944 – 2024), the third among nine children, was drawn to football from a young age. Life had blessed him abundantly with challenges which he took head-on on and never backed from dribbling his life’s problems away with determination and dedication, match after match. Financial hardship didn’t allow him to complete his formal college education.
A promising state player and with an industrial skill development diploma in his hands meant it opened his doors to employment nonetheless, both at the Namrup Fertilizer Corporation and at Oil India Limited starting in 1964 as an OIL worker. With that, he set on an iconoclastic career centred around football, mainly OIL FC and later Duliajan Club FC.
India’s North East region, geopolitically aloof but rich in natural resources, was a hotbed for socio-political volatilities starting just a few years from independence. Located on the upper basin of the river Brahmaputra, OIL and NFC were critical industries of the Government of Assam and gradually emerged as the front runners of organised, corporate football from the late sixties after making investments in the sports infrastructure.
The sixties saw football’s popularity grow as a sport but remain relatively confined to tea estates and townships mostly as a seasonal sport. The absence of TV made radio the only mass media available to the masses along with a few print newspapers. Apart from the state power board’s FC and the railway’s FC, football was still a distant dream of ‘leisure as profession’ for sports enthusiasts in the region.
For average folks, it was difficult to imagine life off the paddy field, spent chasing a ball that too in a ‘stupid’ game like football. The language even had vocabulary (ball khedaa = ball chasing) describing the acidic futility of chasing air-filled bags.
But as the saying goes, legends are born not made, OIL FC’s humble start in 1964 and its subsequent rise to dominance in the game, are no less legendary than the people and team members who contributed to make that possible. After turning NFC FC into an unbeatable force in the region, Fazal Haque and his co-player Arun Borthakur were re-hired by OIL India to strengthen their team in 1969. Inevitably, OIL FC emerged from obscurity into a force of dominance with the cooperation and hard work put in by the players after Haque joined the team.
Notable players that sent live crowds into a frenzy and broke the radio waves with their goals, mesmerising tackles and superior kicks and more during that period were Arun Borthakur, Dambaru Khanikar, Mukul Shobers, Talimeren Ao, Swadhin Dekaraja among others, who contributed with their sweat and blood to the betterment of OIL FC team and the sport in general.
The period from a relatively obscure OIL FC to a team that gradually emerged as a force of dominance can be roughly divided into activities spanning about a decade by the home team, details of which can be topics for a different story altogether. But it would be interesting for the reader to know that in 1969, Oil India Limited was only a decade-old enterprise in the region and apart from exploratory drilling and production operations, it was still a nascent entity in the minds of local people.
Football came as a crowd puller for the company and through the game it became easier for the company to make its presence felt among the public. In many ways, the players of those years were the living, breathing mascots of the organisation whose performance on the field spoke volumes about the company morale. It would also be interesting to note how victory in the football stadium translated into higher recognition of the company’s image among the public which in turn improved the acceptance of the job it was doing on the field.
No doubt, the players, especially Fazal Haque, were examples of the ‘Soul’ of those games as they lifted society’s hopes and imaginations through their gameplay and achievements creating lasting impressions for future generations to look up to.
Fazal Haque’s excellence with football brought him bigger and bigger responsibilities both on the field and in life, which included among equally significant others, the opportunity to keep playing for the state football team for a considerable period of about a decade (1964-73). His loyalty to his home state Assam was a prime factor why he refused to play for any other football clubs of the nation, worth mentioning the Mohammedan Sporting of West Bengal.
His colleague and co-player Tosen Bora described him as “A dedicated and orthodox football player.” Sports historians have also recorded Haque’s exuberance in the sport during the 1973, interstate match with Punjab where he outshone hardcore forwards like Inder Singh with his brilliant sportsmanship. When sports writer Arun Baruah described him as a “Dedicated gallant fighter with unachievable determination..,” he couldn’t be more right. His superior defensive skills and reliability on the field rightly earned him the title “The Wall”. Apart from football he also played other sports like cricket, volleyball and athletics.
Fazal Haque in a cinematic turn of life events wed Narzi Haque in 1978, who was also an ardent fan and an admirer of his off-field persona.
A resident of the same township whose family hailed from Assam’s Titabor (Jorhat) town, the two had a family with three sons. He is survived by Suhail Haque, Sabir Haque and Shakil Haque and their families. His NFC, and OIL work colleagues fondly remember ‘Fazal Da’ as a helpful and friendly person.
His sports admirers, though not a surprising lot at this point, are among the ones who would rather skip meals to witness a football match. With his passing away on June 23, 2024, residents of Duliajan, Assam and the sports community grieve at the immensity of loss created by the absence of this great soul. We pray to the almighty God so that the blessed soul of his may finally rest in peace.
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