Kolkata: Mohun Bagan’s legendary goalkeeper and current Technical Committee member Shibaji Banerjee breaths his last at his friend’s house at Entally tonight. In the afternoon he went to a programme on request of another former Mohun Bagan footballer Satyajit Chatterjee. After that, he went to Entally to his friend’s house via New Alipore. There he had a massive heart attack and couldn’t quite recover from that. The news would certainly be huge shock to the entire sports fraternity.
Shibaji Banerjee played in Mohun Bagan’s goal when the famous New York Cosmos came with Pele back in 1977. The match ended 2-2 and Banerjee pulled off a string off saves including a Pele free-kick.Famous in his pink shirt and for saving penalty-kicks, Banerjee played for Mohun Bagan for 11 years. He did not concede a goal against arch-rivals East Bengal for four years, from 1977. He was instrumental in helping Mohun Bagan emerge joint-winners of the 1978 IFA Shield with Ararat Yerevan of the former USSR. That match too ended 2-2.Shibaji was 68 years old and left his son and his wife in complete shock while leaving the planet. His body will now be kept at the Peace world and tomorrow, it will be taken to his beloved Mohun Bagan club tent. A minute of silence will be observed at the Netaji Indore Stadium before the scheduled Sports Day.