Dimapur, Feb. 10: A group of young people in Dimapur is set to kick off a football tournament in Dimapur with the sole aim of promoting fitness and friendship through football. The unregistered football league known as the CASE Premier League will feature non professionals above 30 years of age.
What started as a friendly fixture between a certain group of friends for leisure and fitness has been taken a notch higher in order to usher in some spirit of competition amongst them. With the formation of this league, the teams will now compete under predetermined regulations and guidelines at par with international rules of football.
Under the theme “Beyond friendship, beyond fitness and beyond football”, CASE Premier League is all about young working class men trying to keep fit and despite the age constraint, competing against each other with the same coercion which bonded them together while growing up kicking balls in their colony/backyards.
The inaugural CASE Premier League comprises of five teams viz., STAFAC FC, Hyderabad Nizams, Trinity Sporting, Team HHH and CASE FC. STAFAC FC consists of alumni from the well known Patkai Christian College while Hyderabad Nizams consist of friends that studied together in Hyderabad. Trinity Sporting is a team from Padumpukhri and Team HHH consisting of DABA executives, members and friends from the Christian Ministry. CASE FC consists of best friends who have been playing almost every other game together for ages.
The league will kick off on Saturday, February 11 at Patkai Christian College football ground. The football ground at the Christian Institute of Health Science and Research (Referral Hospital) will be the second venue for the almost two month long league.
The matches will be played on Saturdays so as not to clash with the professional life of players which comprises of businessmen, doctors, government employees, teachers and so forth from every walk of life.
The only winning prize is a Trophy but according to the organisers, this one trophy is “laden with camaraderie, spirit of never giving up, to be competitive and prove that age cannot hold you back from doing anything in life but most importantly a lot of respect.”