ISL: The incredible fans of NorthEast United FC
Fans play a very important role in any football team’s performance. Who does a football club play for? Who do they represent? It is all for their fans. What do fans do? And why do they support a team?
In simple language, for a fan, appreciation of someone or something is more like a tradition or duty than expression. To answer the second question, as to why does a fan support someone or something, let’s quote Noam Chomsky. In 1995 he said:
“I remember in high school, already I was pretty old. I suddenly asked myself at one point, why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? I mean, I don’t know anybody on the team, you know? I mean, they have nothing to do with me. I mean, why I am cheering for my team?
“It doesn’t make sense. But the point is, it does make sense: it’s a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements – in fact, it’s training in irrational jingoism.”
Chomsky co-relates the devotion of fans towards a team as their submission to an authority and as a practice of showcasing cohesiveness towards a particular group. This can be well correlated with Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘Imagined Nations’ where he explained nationalism to be an attempt of forming a collective identity of an imaginary cultural territory. Thus, why you support a team primarily is primarily characterized by your cultural proximity, geographical proximity and at times you personal self.
North East India is very passionate about football
NorthEast United is one club that enjoys a very peculiar fan following. It is one team that out rightly represents eight states of North Eastern India. This probably is the reason for this peculiar support. ISL matches in Guwahati have seen full house attendance and an incredibly loud audience.
From donning traditional Assamese gamusa’s to wearing team jerseys; from painting faces with NEUFC colours to carrying traditional music instruments – fans from the region can give intense competition to South African vuvuzelas which shot into fame during the 2010 World Cup.
The passion of the North East population towards their club can be well understood by the fact that even the smallest of roadside cloth stalls in Guwahati today has a NEUFC jersey. The sale of unofficial jerseys have gone up so much that you can easily spot kids wearing them and participating in local football tournaments and during practice sessions.
On match days, all around the stadium you can see vendors selling jerseys for as low as Rs 150. It is priced so less because of the sheer number of people who buy them. If you happen to be in Guwahati during the ISL season, don’t be surprised if you see a rickshaw puller wearing the NEUFC jersey in support of the team.
NorthEast United also has a fan club
Then we have individuals like Rajnish Kashyap. Originally from Nagaon, a town some 119 km away from Guwahati, Rajnish has been in Delhi for the past 13 years, running a website development firm. He always had this urge of doing something for his region and ISL gifted him a way of doing so.
Rajnish, along with his friend and partner Anshul Rai, is the owner of a NorthEast United FC fan website. Unique in itself, fans.neufc.club is exclusively dedicated to the club. Interestingly, it is not just the first fan website of ISL, but the first ever website dedicated to any club of ISL.
It was live even before the official website of ISL came online and is well maintained and regularly updated. They are also the owners of the Facebook page NorthEast United Fans, which has about 3,200 likes, all genuine. The page is active and is again very well maintained.
Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda, Rajnish said, “Just like in UK they have fan sites, I wanted to create one for NorthEast United. I want to create fan videos and make it larger.” Anshul, who maintains a keen interest in football, takes care of the content of the website and handles it while Rajnish takes care of the designing.
“It all started with a cup of coffee and both us came up with this website even before clubs started with their official sites,” said Anshul.
The page and site have existed since the first edition of the ISL in 2014 and today they have become a big community. Today, Rajnish organizes screenings of NEUFC matches in Delhi and has a WhatsApp group to mobilize support for the team in Delhi. Others like Gourav Saikia sing and support the club while students of Guwahati Medical College skip their classes to attend matches and support the club.
The club might not be performing well, but there is absolutely no doubting the fact that NorthEast United have one of the best fan bases in the country.