In Pictures

In Pictures: In India’s northeast, Nagas take pride in football

The region with a little over 3 percent of India’s population is home to nearly one-fifth of the national football team.

The goalkeeper reaches for the ball during a friendly football match between villages in Shangshak, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

1 Feb 2021

When someone asked the captain of independent India’s first national football team why they all played barefoot at the London Olympics in 1948, he is said to have answered: “We play football in India. Whereas you play bootball.”

The captain of the team, Talimeren Ao, was a Naga, a group native to India’s northeastern frontier where most people trace their roots to Myanmar or China.

Decades later, his words still ring true.

The region has a little over 3 percent of India’s population but boasts being home to nearly one-fifth of the national football team.

In Naga villages, children playing football barefoot is a common sight. Sometimes the balls they play with are made from pig bladders or rag-stuffed pomelos.

And when matches are played, the entire village turns up to show support. Parents carry infants on their shoulders and young boys make bonfires to keep spectators warm.

The story is no different in Shangshak, home to the Tangkhul Nagas in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur, where two neighbouring villages played a match on Saturday.

The match was just a friendly – neither village has a formal football club.

And rather than football drills, most of the home team’s players spent their morning helping paint a fellow villager’s house, a common practice in a community where the culture of helping neighbours remains deeply ingrained.

In India, cricket is the only sport that matters. Like Bollywood, it is one of the few things that knits together a disparate nation of nearly 1.4 billion. But the fervour for football is felt deeply in India’s northeastern states.

In a largely Hindu country, most Nagas are Christians. They are ethnically distinct from most of India, and for decades, Naga armed groups have been waging a fight for independence.

Most Naga villages are perched on mountaintops, originally built long ago to spot approaching enemies when the region was little more than a forest. But on nearly every hilltop, a football pitch springs to life.

“We learn to play the game from the time we start walking,” said AS Ngayaomi, 20, who was a substitute in Saturday’s match.

When matches are played, the village turns up to show support - the elderly, parents carrying infants, young boys making bonfires to keep spectators warm. More important than the victory is the joy of getting together. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

Spectators turn their faces from the wind blowing dust after a friendly football match in Shangshak village. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

Most Naga villages are perched on mountaintops, originally built long ago to spot approaching enemies when the region was little more than a forest. But in spite of the terrain, on nearly every hilltop, there will be a flat rectangle to serve as a football field. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

KB Paishola, 80, an elderly Tangkhul Naga, stitches a pomelo fruit into a football in Shangshak village. In Naga villages, sometimes balls are made from pig bladders or rag-stuffed pomelos. "I stitch these fruit balls so children can play and I can watch them," she says. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

Nagas are in Indigenous people inhabiting several northeastern Indian states and across the border in Myanmar. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

AS Ngayaomi, 20, third from right, who is sitting in as a substitute player, watches a friendly football match between villages in Shangshak village, with Nungshang village seen in the background mountaintop. "We learn to play the game from the time we start walking," Ngayaomi said. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

Most from the host village had spent the hours before the match painting a house, a common practice in the community where the culture of helping hands remains deeply ingrained. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

A pair of boots lie next to a change of clothes by the side of a football field where a friendly match is in progress, in Shangshak. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

In most of India, cricket is the only sport that matters. But for the Nagas, it is football. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

The region is ethnically distinct and plagued by a decades-long fight for independence. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

Elderly Naga men watch a friendly football match in Shangshak. [Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Photo]

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