A women’s football team from the Darjeeling hills is all set to participate at a soccer league in Calcutta next year.

The tourney — Calcutta Football League, also known as Kanyashree Cup, — is hosted by the Indian Football Association.

According to representatives of the United Kurseong Football Club (UKFC) — that functions under the Kurseong Football Association (KFA) — they had submitted a memorandum to state minister for sports and youth affairs Aroop Biswas during his visit to the hills last month.

We also told him that despite inappropriate infrastructure and lack of a proper soccer ground we have good women football players in hills and they can play at the Calcutta league,” said Sudip Rai, the general secretary of the KFA.

n the course of the meeting, Biswas had assured the local soccer body of Kurseong that he would take necessary steps and had asked them to prepare a pool of footballers who can represent the hill town in Calcutta.
“As per the instructions from the sports minister, we will organise a month-long conditioning-cum-trial camp for women footballers of the hills from November 28. The camp will be held at Sukna (located around 10km from here). We have set a target to select a group of 20-odd players to represent the league that will be held next year. The UKFC is one of the prominent clubs of the region and it will represent our team,” added Rai.

The 35-year-old soccer club participates in various football tournaments every year and has produced a number of national level players.

For the past couple of months, KFA has been promoting women’s soccer across the hills. It has already organised two back to back women’s football tournaments in the tiny hilly hamlet on sub-divisional and district level.
On the basis of the performances of the players, around 20 players were selected by the association to appear in the trial for selection of the Bengal team for the ensuing Santosh Trophy tournament for women’s which will start from November 28 in Kerala.
Crispin Chhetri, the former footballer of the UKFC who is the head coach of the women’s soccer team of Odisha, was present during the trial camp.
“On November 6, we got information about the trial that was held in Calcutta on November 8. Because of such a short notice, altogether 11 players of the KFA could manage to reach the selection venue,” Chhetri added.