Monsoon Camp
Local boys turned rain delays into training drills.
It was the monsoon of 1942, a bunch of boys named Naren, Dharmendra Singh, Devinder Singh, Natu, Panna, Babu, Rajen, Habul, Saibal Banerjee and some more boys in a locality of Entally of East central Calcutta were planning to play in a tournament, by forming a team. The tournament was a foot tennis tournament, and was taking place in Amherst Row of North Central Calcutta. They entered the tournament in the name of Tapan Smriti Sangha, within a few days the name changed to Tapan Memorial Club. Tapan was a little boy of Dasgupta family who was called back to heaven by almighty in a very young age. To memorize his presence on this earth, with his name the little boys started their football rolling.
That was the inception of a great voyage. The club initially used to play in local grounds, After some years they shifted to Park Circus ground where they started playing serious cricket, They decided to get an affiliation from the major sports bodies like CAB, But to get that, they needed to compete with some clubs who were already affiliated under CAB. For this purpose, some more players from nearby localities started along with some of the existing players.
The tale began. The club got affiliated under CAB in the year 1956. Subsequently affiliations came from BHA and IFA. The club started playing in the 2nd division of Calcutta Cricket League. In the year 1969-70 the club earned its promotion to the Senior Division by beating C.C.B. In the season of 1980-81, following poor performance of that season, got relegated to second division, but, in the following year itself, again earning the top position of that division, got promoted to senior division again. Thereafter, the club has always been maintaining a steady performance in the senior division cricket league.
In the year 2005, the club got the first taste of standing on the podium with the bests in the business. Losing to Mohan bagan they received the runners – up trophy of the senior division one day tournament. Mr. Ashoke Malhotra, Mr. Joydeep Mukherjee, Mr. Vishal Yadav, Mr. Satinder Yadav, Mr. Sumit Dogra, Mr. Arup Bhattacharya, Mr. Sagarmoy Sensharma used to play for us in that period. Then again a steady performance for some more years and then, since the introduction of Super League in the year 2015, the club became a regular custodian of that confederacy with another feather of becoming the runners up in the senior division knock-out one day tournament in the year 2017. Players like Pramod Chandila became selected for Bengal team in the year 2015. In the year 2022, on 9th October Shahbaz Ahmad made it for India in South Africa. He was selected for Zimbabwe and Bangladesh tour also. He had played against Afghanistan and had contributed for the Indian cricket team to earn the Gold Medal in the Asian Games conducted in Hangzhou, China. Debuted for Bengal in the year 2018 currently played Deodhar Trophy for East Zone and will also has been a part of IPL since 2020 for the franchise RCB. Shahbaz is currently retained by Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL trophy tournament. Pramod Chandila had played for Bengal in the Ranji Trophy and Syed Mustaq Ali Trophy, played for Eastern Zone also. Arun Chaprana had played for Haryana, Mr. Chander pal Saini, another player of our cricket team, played for Railways side in the year 2018. Ramesh Prasad has played for Bengal in the Ranji Trophy in 2020-21. Our Gaurav Chauhan has played for Bengal U-25 also, Kaif Ahmed had played for Bengal in Syed Mustaq Ali Trophy.
The saga continues…
