and now it is 20twenty football match

Twenty20 cricket match has become quite popular ever since the new method has been introduced in the world of cricket, but in foot ball match have you ever heard about twenty20 ? But here in Sambalpur twenty20 football match has been organized every year over the past 26 years. Under the aegis Meher Association, one of the premier sport organizations of Sambalpur, experiment is going on to make football popular among the people. In order to give a new look to it the members decided to organize one-day twenty20 football competition every year where football teams from several parts of the region participate and play the matches.

‘Since we do not have much financial support, we decided to organize such a tournament. Here cost is very low as we complete it in one day. More over our passion on the foot-ball and in order to keep the foot ball alive among the youngsters, this is perhaps the best way to organize such twenty20 foot ball matches’, Secretary of the Meher Association Biraja Sankar Hota told.

Souce said, Meher Association of Sambalpur is one of the oldest foot-ball organizations of the state that has brought glory to the state in the field of football in the past. The contribution of the organization in the field of foot-ball is similar of the contribution of Mohan bagan or Mohammedan sporting of WB. But with the changing of time and situation, the Organization fails to produce new talent in the recent time because of the poor-interest of the youngsters on football.

‘Our organization is the nursery in the field of football as it has produced numbers footballers in the past that brought glory to the state in football. But now with the rise of cricket, most of the youngsters do not take interest in football. So our efforts are to make popularize football again’ Mr. Hota told. “We organize Twenty20 football matches ever since we started this tournament 26 years ago. Here duration of match is 45 minutes including a gap of 5 minutes. Each team comprising 9 players plays 20 minutes on each side of the ground”, he added.

Souce said the one-day twenty20 football-tournament; organized on Sunday at Gangadhar Meher college ground was on its 27^th years where 7 teams from various part of western Orissa participated. The rural star of Bolangir won the final match by bating Kosmas club of Sambalpur with 2-0 and grabbed the cup. “It was a nice experience to play twenty20 football match. I think after coming up the twenty20 cricket match, twenty20 football match will definitely be popular among the people” defender of Bolangir’s rural star Sanjib Maharan told.