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Mohun Bagan and East Bengal are sworn rivals, so much so that the clashes in the stands have become as common as the clashes on the field. The historical power houses of Indian football have been at loggerheads ever since their inception. However, we believe that fanaticism about your favourite club is one thing and escalating it to make it threatening for others is another. We support the previous. 

 

In one such incident, 19-year-old Anirban Kanshabanik was severely injured by a group of Bagan supporters next day to the IFA Shield finale, during the training session. The injury suffered on the forehead(near the eye) and needed a surgery which cost around 2.5 Lakhs. Now it was East Bengal fans’ turn to respond, and they responded by this—

 

Different group of East Bengal supporters launched an online crowd funding platform to raise the money required for Anirban’s surgery. Well, what looked like a herculean process to begin with took off well. 

 

In what turns out to be a heart warming story, Anirban’s crowd funding was helped and shared by the supporters of rival club Mohan Bagan as well. The campaign found enormous support as they were able to raise Rs 50000 within the first 12 hours and 1.5 Lakh by the end of the day.

 

It created ripples in the social media catching attention from East Bengal club management, who have promised to financially help Anirban to recover from the injury. It was recently reported that Nitu Sarkar & Debraj Choudhury from the club visited the suffering fan at the hospital and announced that the treatment expenses will be taken care of by the club. Not just that, East Bengal fans also confirmed that Mohun Bagan's Srinjoy Bose also helped the victim by providing funds. These are the traces that compels one to think that football and humanity wins, no matter what happens on the pitch...

 

It is a brilliant gesture from both the clubs to throw their support behind the loyal fans in the time of their needs. Time and again, football endorses humanity above anything else. Now its time for the young fan, Anirban to resuscitate from the injury and cheer for the Red and Gold men back again in the streets of Kolkata.