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Remembering VP Sathyan, India's forgotten 'Captain'
Monday, October 15, 2018 IST
Remembering VP Sathyan, India

There's a scene in the movie 'Captain', a freshly-minted Malayalam biopic on former India defender VP Sathyan, which tries to capture the conflict raging in the injured footballer's mind, between giving up one match and the longevity of his limbs.
 

 
 

The camera is focused on the protagonist from an immobile ceiling fan above as he painfully straddles a football between his feet, one of them wrapped in a bandage, and tosses it against the switchboard to turn it on. It's also meant to be symbolic of him having chosen the latter, more perilous option of ditching medical logic for mad passion. He ends up paying for it with a truncated career, plumbing depths of depressive behavior and eventually his own life.
 
For the ISL generation, Sathyan may not be a particularly familiar name. A former India captain and doughty defender who started his career in 1983 turning out for Kerala at the Santosh Trophy, Sathyan went on to represent the country in 40 matches until his retirement in 1997. Hailing from Kannur, he was part of the once-formidable Kerala Police team which won Federation Cup titles on the trot. He also briefly turned out for Kolkata's Mohammedan Sporting club before moving to Mohun Bagan for two seasons. He then returned to Kerala Police before finally moving to Chennai to join the Indian Bank side.
 
Best remembered for his scorching 35-yard footer in the 1986 Merdeka tournament against South Korea which took India into the semi-finals, Sathyan helped end Kerala's 17-year Santosh Trophy title drought in 1992 and was part of the India squad that cantered to a gold-medal finish at the 1995 SAF Games in Chennai.
 
However, despite the plucky performances, the fame that followed fellow Kerala players IM Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri never came Sathyan's way.
 
 
"I think it had a lot to do with his role of being a defender in the side," Vijayan tells ESPN. "We played many matches together in the national team with him as captain and me serving as vice-captain. I used to often joke with him that he should consider retiring so that I get a chance at captaincy. He rarely got the limelight but his indispensability in the team was evident when he missed even one match.
 
"I remember, he had two yellow cards so couldn't play against South Korea in Seoul at the 1993 World Cup qualifiers. I was named captain but with our best defender out it might have been possible that our then goalkeeper Hemanta Dora felt unnerved and ended up falling sick. We ended up losing 7-0. That's the kind of difference a player like Sathyan could make to the team."
 
Ancheri, who also played under Sathyan's captaincy, recalls him as a player who stayed on in the practice field long after the rest of the team members had cleared out.
 
"He was a terrific player with an intimidating exterior but a soft heart and a crazy love for the game. When I was young, I traveled everywhere from Thrissur to Coimbatore to watch him play. Even when I came into sport, money was little and opportunities few so he encouraged me to try my luck in Kolkata clubs. There was so much more he deserved, but so little of it that he actually got."
 
Prajesh Sen, the director of the film, throws light on the life of anonymity that Sathyan lived through the re-telling of an incident that took place at the Bengaluru airport when he was still India captain. Sathyan is shown poring over a newspaper at the airport with his wife teasing him for not being recognized by anyone around. Just then a young girl walks up to Sathyan, introduces herself as a sports fan and requests for a pen. The couple exchange glances of joy and relief but it's short-lived as she darts off to seek an autograph from Ravi Shastri in the VIP lounge. For the record, Sathyan hasn't even won an Arjuna Award.
 
 
"Yes that memory is still fresh in my mind," wife Anitha Sathyan says. "He never really got the due he deserved as a player but that never stopped him from giving all he could on the field."
 
Interestingly, South Indian actor Jayasurya, who portrays Sathyan's character in this elegy, told ESPN that until he took up the project, he had never played football in his life.
 
"I think that's the greatest irony of the film. As a child I never played much sport because I suffered from episodes of rheumatic fever. For this movie I took up football training for over three months with Sathyan's coaches TV Joy and CC Jacob. But to do justice to the character, it wasn't enough for me to just kick the ball around. I had to do so with the swagger and conviction of a captain."
 
The ubiquitous Mallapuram - a district in Kerala known for its obsession for the sport - football fan also finds identity in the film through an anonymous character with a greying Afro and a red-blue saddle bag who is referred to as Maidanam or playing field. He travels wherever the game takes him, cheers and hoots a goal, rebukes an insipid performance and appears out of nowhere on an inky night to offer tips on the right way to tie the laces of playing boots. He also tells you how knowledgeable the average football fan in Malabar is.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

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Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST


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