Chandra shekhar

Khelo India Youth Games: Football ke rang, Begusarai ke sangh. It’s more than just a tagline pasted on the pillars of an under-construction flyover leading into this town. It’s a quiet revolution that began with broken legs and bruised pride in a forgotten corner of Bihar.

Tucked away from the din of Patna’s bustle, in a humble locality of Barauni in Begusarai district, football did not just arrive, it fought its way in. This ground, a patch of land that carries the legacy of a freedom fighter Yamuna Bhagat, became football’s unlikely home nearly 80 years ago.

But the spark that truly lit its modern-day fire came in 1990, when a hastily assembled team of local girls, untrained and unsure, were battered by a seasoned Muzaffarpur team in an exhibition match, meant to mark the ground’s 50th anniversary.