Playing football in Kerala and Kolkata was crazy: Iain Hume

Former ISL legend Iain Hume reflected on his time in the league and said playing football in Kerala and Kolkata was crazy. Hume savored great success while playing for Atletico de Kolkata, Pune City FC and Kerala Blasters FC in the Indian Super League.

The Canadian played 69 matches in the ISL and scored 29 goals in the tournament. He also provided seven assists in the league.

Hume revealed that people in Kerala and Kolkata are die-hard football fans and recalled how fans would fill the stadium with numbers.

Hume said in an exclusive interview season with Footy Prime, “In the first couple of years, there was a very carnival atmosphere. So, every game was a spectacle. We had the 10-second countdown on the big screen going into the game, fireworks on every goal, big flares when you’re walking out. I felt like stone cold coming out.”

It is well known that India is a cricket-loving country and Hume ranked Football as the second most loved sport in India.

“Second (on where football ranks in the hierarchy of Indian sports),” he said.

“You go to the East Coast (of India), to Kolkata, where I played for two seasons. I think it’s the second-oldest derby in world football. So, Mohun Bagan Super Giant and East Bengal FC are on either side of Kolkata. And I think it’s second to one of the Brazilian rivalries. It’s insane,” he shared.

“They’ve had games where there were seventy-eighty thousand seated stadiums with 160000 or 170000 people inside them,” he further added.

Sharing his experience of playing in the ISL, Hume said, “FC Pune City wasn’t a great supported club, but it was a very good club. It was a smaller town, a tech city, and people would come out. We got six-seven thousand people every game. But playing in Kerala and Kolkata is crazy.”

“They are just football nuts. They love cricket, and I’m not going to take that away, but they are football nuts. Kerala was more over the top with it, like they (people) were crazy in love with their club and they still are. Kolkata was a more historical one. They formed Atletico de Kolkata, which was the sister club of Atletico Madrid. We would do our preseason in Spain. We did that for a month and then went back to India. I did that for two years,” he continued.