It was 7th of October, Friday. My morning began as usual with me reaching ten mins late for my microprocessor practicals. It was however surprising to see Abhishek (Mallu) present before the pracs had started. He was marked absent last two times because he would come only half an hour late for the pracs. Nishant was already present when I had entered the lab and our wannabe nerd, shashank as usual acted as if he knew everything. Nandan and rohit came 10 mins later after I had arrived. I tried to listen what our teacher, Jinal mam was explaining, whereas nandan and Rohit did what they do when they come to microprocessors lab-check Football news. After our teacher’s explanation all students went back to their computers to type, compile, and run 8086 program on nasm software. It was the ritual we performed during μ p pracs. I always sit next to nishant, because he is one of the sincerest, and he copies the program to be executed on his book and so I don’t have to copy. This gives me some time to rest because i am running after the bus to try & reach college on time. Meanwhile, rohit and nandan read about the big match today. Blackburn vs pune.
Premier league team coming to play in India, an opportunity a die hard football fan would never want to miss.
Venkys took over Blackburn last year, decided to bring BBR to India to play a friendly match. Initially the match was going to be played in July during off season. However due to unavoidable circumstances the match was cancelled
However Venky’s announced that BBR would travel to pune on 7th oct. but because of college it was almost impossible to go on that day. So I had planned to come home early, sit back and enjoy the historic tie between pune fc and bbr on tv.
I liked Blackburn not because they are one of the four teams to win premier league in decade or so, but because of the players they had. I still remember how Bellamy and Perderson had terrorized Manchester united and had won a double over the mighty Manchester united. I admired Pederson, that I wanted him to play for Arsenal alongside Fabregas. I also remember Shefki Kuqi hitting volleys, & heavy tackles of Robbie Savage.
Pune FC, doesn’t exist for those who do not follow Indian football and those who follow, know that it is the most professional club in India. They have their own stadium, even the big old clubs are not so fortunate. A good fan following. They have more than 28000 likes on their official facebook page, which is surprisingly more than the likes on Rovers’ facebook page
As I tried to figure out the errors of my typed program, nandan came besides me and said,” let’s go to pune.” Rohit backed him. I nodded. Till now, we had not realized how serious we actually were. We mocked.
Rohit felt bad because he had rejected his friends’ offer who had tickets. We then returned to finish our program. After that we had to execute another program. Then rohit’s phone beeped. His over-excitement was visible on his face. He came and shook me and showed the msg he had just received, it was from his friend monik. I read, “ team- salgado, yakubu, ruben rochina, samba, dunn.” It was enough to get all of us excited. We had no option but to go. We cannot miss to see so many big names live in action.
Next what we had to do was to get permission from our home to go to pune. Rohit convinced his parents so did I. Even nishant did not have to take much efforts. Abhishek after calling his mom,” sorry guys, I cannot make it!”. Nandan ,” hard luck dude.” We asked Eshan, he rejected with a baalish(childish) expression.
Then Nandan called his mom and his conversation was the best. “hello mom. I am going to pune today .. a team from England, Blackburn has come to play. I will reach home by 12. I will be safe. You don’t worry……. No I have money.” He was done. Taking permission for him was as simple as torres missing an open goal.
Tanmay still had to call. He was the most scared to ask at home, because as he says he is not allowed to be out after 7pm. But surprisingly even he got approval in couple of minuites. We called nitin to come. He agreed. So me, nandan, nitin, tanmay, nishant , rohit and monik were all set to go to watch the historic tie. However we still had a big hurdle to cross, we had to book tickets.
Monik said he would book the tickets online and call us back in 15 mins. We were overjoyed. We had told almost everyone we met in the college that we are going.
Half an hour passed, still there was no call from monik. When we called him, he told that his internet connection had desserted him in the middle of transiction and it was not processing now. So we decided to go to our computer lab to check if the tickets were available.
We quickly logged on to bookmyshow.com as soon as we reached our computer lab. Then a huge brick fell on our hearts. The computer screen displayed the message-“ The seats in this category are sold out”. Now it was useless going to pune because even if we did it was of no use. And we had told almost the whole class that we were going. Nitin had updated his facebook status that he is going to pune to experience the historic tie, which had received 7 like and about 12 comments.
Quickly we checked Pune f.c’s official website for any contact details. There were two contact numbers, one in pune and other in Mumbai. We dialled the 1st number. It didn’t ring. Tanmay suggested to try 2nd. We did. This time someone picked up the phone. Nandan spoke wth him. That man was some Ashok. Nandan told him to reserve 7 tickets for today’s match and we would pick up the tickets in about half an hour. Pune f.c had their office in parel, peninsula building, not much far from our college in worli.
We quickly got a cab to parel. Meanwhile Tanmay went home. In the cab nandan called back to Ashok just to confirm that 7 tickets are reserved. He said that he had and his secretary Chaube-ji was waiting for us. He told us to come to peninsula centre. We got down from cab and searched and searched for peninsula centre but we couldn’t find it. However we did reached near a building, peninsula spenta in mathuradas mills.
Nandan called back on Ashok’s number. This time Chaube-ji picked.
Nandan: hello chaube-ji
Chaube-ji: yes
Nandan : we had booked 7 tickets for the match.
Chaube-ji : haan. Aap kaha pe ho?
Nandan : hum yahan Mathura das mill ke bahar khade hai.
Chaube-ji (in typical Bhojpuri accent) : kaunsa Mathuradas mill? Kahan ka mathuradas mill? Hum to yaha poona station ke bahar hai.
Nandan : okay !
Reality dawned upon us. We had mistakenly dialled the number in pune office. And now 7 tickets were reserved for us which were near pune station which is far away from the stadium. It was 1.30 and the kick off was at 6.30. We went to peninsula spenta. We asked the watchman at the gate if Ashok worked there? NO he replied. Our hopes seemed crashed. i don’t know what happened or was it our destiny but Somehow nandan recalled a name Chirag Tanna . He asked the watchman at the gate if Chirag Tanna worked there? Watchman was kind enough and he replied in affirmative this time and told us that pune fc had their office in this building. Meanwhile monik called and told us that some of his relatives friend was standing in the queue at the stadium to book our tickets.
I and nandan went inside the building to meet the person we hoped to meet for last one hour or so. I unfolded my shirts’s sleeves to look professional as we entered a big corporate. We asked for chirag tanna at the reception and told that we had come from our college to meet him. We were given visiting card and everything. We went to 2nd floor as his office was there. It was a very high security place, we did almost breach the whole security. When we reached his office we were asked to wait in the waiting room. Then a man came and asked us what work we had. We replied that we had come here to collect the tickets we had booked on phone sometime back. He went back and after some time a lady came with two tickets in her hand. She was very cute and the way she spoke was worth admiration. I told her that we actually wanted seven tickets.
“oh!” she said, “ I will have to check if I could manage soo many tickets” and she returned.
I looked at nandan and we smiled looking at each our because we felt talking with her completed our task we had come to accomplish.
She came back again in 5 mins and gave us a piece of paper.
“this number is of general manager of pune fc.” She said pointing to the number written on paper, “ u directly walk in the stadium, 7 tickets are reserved for you guys.”
We finally had done what we had come here to do.
When we came out of building, nishant and rohit came rushing towards us and told us that monik’s relative had booked 7 tickets were booked from the stadium.
Nandan and I started laughing
We now had 21 tickets reserved for us .
An hour back we were finding it difficult to get 7 tickets and now we had 21 !
What a great adventure we just had, nandan exclaimed! I completely agreed with him.
Tanmay, nitin and monik met us at dadar, where we had to take a bus to go to pune. We got bus ticket for rs 200 for pune. Our journey started at 2.30 and we reached stadium at 6.25. stadium buzzed with the chants PFC…PFC…..Who are we…….PFC PFC !!!!!!!
Match started on time. At 15 mins referee played villan and showed a red card to pune fc’s player. Jason Roberts opened the dead lock. Pune fc defended well in bits and pieces. On 52 minutes, Rochina scored with a fierce left-foot shot from just outside the box. Jason Roberts scored again to make the scoreline 0-3. Jeje Lalpekhlua got the the spectators to strain out their decibels-levels with a run deep into the Rover’s box after beating a defender.The match ended 0-3, a respectable defeat for pune fc considering the fact that they played with 10 man for most of the match.
It was the night to remember for all of us. We clicked loads of pics and a got something which can be called a smaller vuvuzeula and a match day book as a souvenir. We took a bus at 10 and returned back home at 1.30
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