India’s star athlete: Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium

On learning that the sports ministry has made proposals to demolish Delhi’s iconic sports venue, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, and redevelop the 102-acre complex with a sprawling state-of-the-art sports city, my mind went back to a post on social media I had shared some 11 years ago. Along with a pic, I wrote that my new office may not be the most swish, but its view was to die for: JLN Stadium’s running track and outfield in all its glory.

For the next three years, that room, which Javier, my FIFA U17 World Cup colleague, and I shared with a persistent rodent we named Rodney, was the base for a thousand dreams about changing Indian football.

Built in the early-80s for the 1982 Asian Games, JLN is a sprawling complex with over a hundred small offices tucked within its capacious interior. Aside from usual suspects like Sports Authority of India and National Dope Testing Laboratory, there was even a Bridge Association that operated out of there. A sports book library run by SAI was sadly in a state of serious neglect.

Once, when looking around for space for our rapidly burgeoning team, we came across a room, probably not opened for a decade, that had about 200 brand new push-button phones. Another room yielded 7-8 life-size Shera’s, the tiger mascot of 2010 Commonwealth Games.

But for a certain generation, it’s Appu, elephant mascot of the 1982 Asian Games that will always be the first memory associated with the stadium. Those first pictures from the Asiad opening ceremony introduced colour TV to India. And from Nov 19 to Dec 4, we were treated to 10-12 hours of sporting action, an unbelievable treat in those days.

The next big event here was actually cricket, not something for which the stadium was designed. The first day-night match outside Australia was held at JLN on September 21, 1983, when India played an unofficial match against Pakistan for the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. World Cup stalwart Kirti Azad was the star for India, taking 3 wickets and scoring 71 runs to power India to an unlikely victory. A year later, on September 28, 1984, the first official day-night ODI was played here, with the Aussies comprehensively outplaying India on the back of a commanding century by Kepler Wessels.

In the 1980s-90s, JLN was actually used mostly for non-sporting events, and the occasional athletics event. It was before the 2010 Commonwealth Games that the stadium had its next facelift, this time based on a design by German firm Gerkan, Marg & Partners.

While the Games were spectacular, with a breathtaking opening ceremony, and discus-thrower Krishna Poonia winning India’s first Commonwealth athletic gold in 52 years, it was sadly non-sporting news that dominated the Commonwealth Games headlines, for what should have been a break-out sporting event for India.

We took over the main stadium in 2014 for the Fifa U17 World Cup. With the sports ministry’s help, JLN was gleaming for the first day of the tournament, with the PM in attendance. But the powers that be had decided that children from far off towns and villages should get the first chance to watch the first Indian side ever to play in a Fifa tournament. Some 25,000 children were bus-ed in 5 hours before the match with minimal food and water arrangements, leaving them hungry and thirsty before the match even started. Security refused to allow water carriers in without accreditation.

We had our moment, though, a few days later when Jeakson Singh headed in India’s first-ever goal in a Fifa match. For a glorious 90 seconds, we were level with Colombia – before Juan Peneloza scored his second and sealed the match for the South Americans.

For the remaining 7 minutes, every voice in the stadium exhorted the Indian players to equalise. And when it didn’t materialise, the crowd softly started chanting ‘Hum honge kamyab.’ They sang and stayed for a while, making it a night few who experienced it will ever forget.

If reported plans to completely ‘dismantle’ JLN are true, when they start to demolish its 40-yr-old edifice, I wonder what else they’ll find in that wonderland we once knew as Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.