Kolkata: Students and fellow footballers from the past and present paid respect to Diamond coach Amal Dutta in his condolence today. The condolence party was organised by Apurba Samadder of Baguiati Sport’s Association at Shivangan of Baguiati, place where the veteran coach used to dwell. In today’s condolence it was all about recapturing the memories of Amal Dutta.
Students of 80s and 90s of the coach mainly recalled their experiences with him. From that meeting former footballers raised the demand of building a statue of Amal Dutta at Baguiati.
Apart from the students of the ‘Diamond’ coach Samaresh Chowdhury, Tarun Basu, Bhaskar Ganguly, Sumit Mukherjee were present today. Tarun Basu described him as, “The guardian of Maidan”.
According to the words of Bhaskar Ganguly, “Indian football could not utilise Amal Dutta out of his best. That is the reason why Indian football is lagging behind so much.”
Samaresh Chowdhury described him as versatile man by saying, “From Ramkrishna to music world, he had vivid knowledge and sharing.”
Other two footballers of Maidan emphasized on making Amal Dutta memorable to everyone. Sumit Mukherjee claimed, “There should be a tournament in the name of Amalda. He should be remembered through football.” However, Prasanta Chakraborty claimed, “a statue of Amalda should be build at Baguiati where he used to live.”
Among all others son of the deceased coach Asish Dutta was also present in his funeral dress. People gathered to pay respect to Amal Dutta today and took the oath of making Diamond coach memorable to this generation of footballers.