Susanth Matthew: It feels really painful when your team is playing against your former team for whom you have so many fond memories and you are not being able to play the game because of injuries.
East Bengal is my favourite team and former side and I am far away from Kolkata despite being the captain of my present club Gokulam FC. I have been suffering from a knee injury and couldn’t be a part of that travelling squad.
We have a new team with some quality foreign players and a few experienced Indian lads. Santosh Trophy winning Pravat Lakra to goalkeeper Priyant Singh & Sandu Singh, we have the quality. Our owner Mr. Praveen is very passionate towards the game. All our mission is to promote more and more local talents. And we got our own head coach Binu George from Trissur, the only one Pro-licence holder from Kerala he’s very sincere and determined to do his job passionately. Our team is started from Malappuram last season but then we shifted our base to Calicut this season where football is so popular.
This team formed Feb 2016 and we played 3 tournaments including Kerala local league, finished 3rd in last season and at Orissa Biju Patnaik tournament we came 1st and Kerala Club football tournament we were 2nd and this season we played only one tournament in September 2017 at Goa AWES Cup we finished 2nd, was a good experience for our boys to play against the top teams in Goa. Even in this I-League season, we don’t dream to become the champions in the opening season, but the results in football is unpredictable and impossible is nothing. We are working hard as a team to do well in this I-League and A top four finish what we expecting this season. But trust me, the dream is bigger. We want to see not just a Sushant Matthew but the future IM Vijayan, Jo Paul Ancherys and M.Sureshs from Gokulam FC. I am sure the future is bright with the dream we have.