SportsMeet-Bangalore, November Edition had top speakers!

The November edition of SportsMeet had few exceptional speakers which held the audience at Bangalore’s Christ University enthralled. Former India football international, Raman Vijayan, walked the audience through his formative years. The highest scorer in the I-League (erstwhile NFL) for the 1997-98 season came from the fringes of Tamil Nadu. His village had no football field, yet he had a dream, and finally made it big!

After playing for many years, Raman always had the urge to give back to the beautiful game. He noticed that not many schools were employing physical education teachers in the middle-school yet there are state and national level tournaments for the juniors.

Noble Football Academy was formed in 2009. Raman held an open camp with support from few sports enthusiasts. 4,000 students turned out for trials and 40 boys got selected for a month-long residential camp. Most of the students came from poor background, with several daily wage workers.

The camp consisted of school providing free education. He urged enthusiasts to sponsor in kind not just cash – in came various sponsors in the form of football kits, foods, and so on.

Till date, 25 boys from different age groups from his academy have participated in the state-level tournaments. Two of his academy boys are now playing for South United FC, a private owned professional football club in Bangalore, where he is now serving as a head coach.

Earlier, the session was kick started with a demo session from Bangalore Youth Football League, a football academy imparting football training to the youngsters.

Premdeep Gangadharan, co-founder of Fans on Stands, a sports tourism firm shared his Formula 1 experience and how this sport has a great potential in India. Witness of Formula 1 races for several seasons across the globe, Premdeep highlighted this sport to be a new client entertainment destination for the corporate world. He presented a detailed comparison between the two Indian Grand Prix – 2012 and 2011 which was one of the best parts in his session.

Edited by Staff Editor