Live text commentary on Sportskeeda

I and my childhood best friend Harsh started following football around a decade ago, together. We were the first amongst our friends and people around us to move on from cricket, and John Dykes and his team were instrumental in our growing up years. There were two things about Harsh back then, that I distinctly remember.

1. He always said that my favorite player Michael Owen was useless, and that young Stevie Gerrard was going to be the main man. (In hindsight, I laugh).
2. Sportinglife.com is a good website to follow.


The Sportinglife faithfuls.

Back in the day, ESPN-Star did not have a full coverage of the Premiership. It at most showed 2-3 games all weekend. There were no FA Cups or Carling Cups on the telly. Champions League coverage was good I recall, but regarding all these together, there were so many matches that weren't telecast, and a lot of them involved Liverpool.

Sportinglife was the lifeline for us. The live text commentary was such a life saver. We spent hours 'following' the matches online, witty comments, good humour, sometimes hilarious banter. All along with the action, beautifully described. Night after night, year after year.

Nowadays, it has actually reduced. The matches are almost always on the tv.

So when the guys at Sportskeeda started the Live text stream feature, all these things came to mind again. And I really wanted to do it too. Live text commentary was always a big thing for me.

Did three games this week. Porush Jain, Arvind Ragunathan and Ambuj Gupta were the ones who helped me ease into the whole concept. Great fun doing it with the latter two, especially the El Classico.

Here are the links. If I do more games, I guess I will keep updating this post, for me more than anyone else. Will have a one stop post to get hold of all the live feeds done over the weeks.

1. Chelsea v West Ham : Shame Torres chose this one to break his hilarious duck.

2. Real Madrid v Barcelona. Semi Final of the Champions League. 1st leg. : Messi with two well taken goals, overshadowed by all the playacting nonsense. Was tough to keep up.

3. Liverpool v Newcastle United : Not the best of games, this was my first game on Liverpool.

4. Barcelona v Real Madrid, Semi Final Champions League 2nd leg. : Keeshaanan, a great guy did his first streaming while I and Ambuj hung about to chip in from time to time. Good fun.

5. The BIG One. Champions League Final. Barcelona 3-1 United. What a night. Yes, United are stuck on 3. We had around 10k hits, the site crashed several times, had readers from as far as the West Indies. Great fun with Sayan Maiti, and the other regulars. Porush, the head says it would have been over 20k, had we not crashed. Awesome!

Click here for all the games under Sportskeeda Live Text Feed.

Some thoughts on the football scene, and the Sportskeeda interview with a promising talent

Just today in office, knowing my Calcutta club cricket background, one of my seniors who has a 10 month old child asked, which cricket coaching should I put my child in after a few years? Hah. Paragraph OVER.



Maybe it's an after effect of the IPL auctions, but nothing seems to have changed in Calcutta. When I was young, contrary to the belief that Calcutta is the mecca of football in India, every child went to a cricket coaching. Including me. After being in Pune for 4 years and seeing the interest there, I have said this so often, Calcutta is the mecca of ugly student politics and civic sense on the road, not the beautiful game.

Thankfully though, there is a bunch of young footballers coming up now, mostly (and not co-incidentally) from Delhi, who are giving it a shot to go play abroad. Why I say not co-incidentally Delhi is because I get an idea that there are schools and academies focused wonderfully on exposure and promotion of promise. That is so awesome to see. I am unaware, but obviously there will be other cities have great institutions focusing on non-cricket disciplines, and I look forward to seeing more of it.

Avyay Gujral had a trial At Man City if I am not mistaken, played for Anderlecht youth set up, been to Brazil etc. Raghav Khurrana plays in Canada now. Siddharth Mookerjee had short stints at big European clubs. Way to go!!!

Thanks to Porush Jain of Sportskeeda, I got the chance to have a chat with one of them - Siddharth Mookerjee, a 17 year old, showing immense promise.

You can check out the interview here. I thank him for the quick response, and with the interaction I have had, he is indeed a great guy. Wishing him all the very best. :)

A word here for Sportskeeda. This start-up is one to really look out for. Knows what it is doing, and it's focus on Indian sports, esp Indian football is heart-warming. Love them for it. Relentlessly trying to give Indian football its due, and doing a fabulous job. Big thumbs up for Porush and the team. It is not a shameless plug, these people are true sports and Indian sports lovers. It is worth supporting whole-heatedly.

India's playing the AFC Asia Cup btw, if we are over the IPL hangover. :)