Sri Sailesh Basu Thakur was born on 18th of July, 1888 and he was the second son of Sri Chandrakanto Basu Thakur. In 1909 the passed his entrance examination and got admitted in Dhaka college.
He used to play football and cricket regularly for his school and his college team. He was a fast bowler. One day while working out in a parallel bar he injured the joint of his hand. After this injury he turned into a spinner. After that he moved on to Kolkata from Dhaka because of health reasons. He got admitted to Metropolitan College after getting a recommendation from his uncle Sri Neelkanto Basu Thakur. The principal of the college was Sri Saroda Ranjan Ray. He played for the college team in his first year of college. In 1911 he was the best player of the college in both batting and bowling and for his exceptional performance he received a scholarship of Rs.25 that year. He played in the college team for nine years, first as a student and then as a game teacher. He also played first class cricket for Sporting Union Club for a few years. He was also the captain of the team. He played against a lot of good cricketers of the time like A.L. Hosi, Lagden, Balu etc. In 1918 he represented Cooch Behar team and played in Bombay and Pune. His highest score was 180 runs. He made ten to twelve centuries. Most wickets he got in an innings were eight.
He was famous in Kolkata in both cricket and in football. Apart from his college team he played football for Jora Bagan club. In 1920 his club lost a match against Mohun Bagan by one goal. The club management blamed the vice president of the club Sri Suresh Chaudhary for the loss. The vice president resigned from the club on the same day. Next day in the company office off U.N.Chaudhury and Company, Sri Suresh Chaudhary along with Sri Sailesh Basu and Sri Ramesh Sen decided to form a club. According to the recommendation of Sri Sailesh Basu they named the club East Bengal club. They also created the working committee. The President was Sri Saroda Ranjan Ray. Joint secretary was Sri Suresh Choudhury and Sri Torit Bhusan Ray. Sri Sailesh Basu Thakur gathered a team of Dhaka’s players. The players were Sri Nogen Kali (goalkeeper), Sri Ramesh Sen, Sri Jiten Mukherjee, Sri Prasanta Bardhan, Sri Sailesh Basu and many others joined the newly formed club. In 1920 East Bengal club was formed. Now the club is 100 years old.
Around four years later after the formation of the East Bengal club he left Kolkata. We went to Cooch Behar because of some business. There is he started playing cricket at Dinajpur Club. He made the game popular there. The club also participated in a few competitive tournaments.
In 1928-29 he returned to Malkhanagarh. At that time he was playing cricket for Dhaka‘s Victoria club. He was in that club till 1948; he was also the captain of the club there. He played professional cricket till the age of 58 years. Sporting union club in their diamond jubilee year indicted him to the clubs’ Hall of Fame. On 11th of October, 1986 he died at the age of 98 years.
Naming of East Bengal Club and Sailesh Basu- one of the founders of the East Bengal Club – By Parijat Moitra
Shailesh Basu, the second son of Chandrakanta Basuthakur of Malkhannagar in East Bengal, was born on 16 July 1888. After passing the entrance examination in 1909, he was admitted to Dhaka College. He played cricket and football regularly in school and college teams. First he was the fast bowler. But he got injured in his right arm while doing parallel bar. As a result he has to leave the fast bowling and become a spinner. He left Dhaka for Calcutta due to health reasons. There he was admitted to the Metropolitan College (now it is known as Vidyasagar College).on the recommendation of his uncle Nilkanta Basu Thakur. In 1911 he received a scholarship of twenty-five rupees for batting and bowling skills from that college. He was a good player in cricket as well as football. Later he got a job in that college. In 1918, he played cricket for the Kochbihar team in Bombay and Pune. At that time he also took eight wickets in an innings in bowling and scored several centuries..
Shailesh Basu used to play football at Sporting Union Club. He used to work as a games teacher in Metropolitan College (now it is known as Vidyasagar College). Shailesh Basu was very popular in college for playing. Professor Sardaranjan Roy (also known as W.G Grace of Bengal Cricket ) liked him very much. However, this popularity had gone against him. Due to his popularity Shailesh Basu was in the bad book of the Principal J.C. Banerjee. Few of the college staff suggested to the Principal that when there are no sports in the college, there is no job for a sports teacher, so some clerical work can be done through him. Professor Banerjee finds a justification in that. He called Shailesh Basu and said, "When there are no sports, you have to do something else." The tone of that sounds like an order which Shailesh Basu did not like and said, "I'm a games teacher, I won't do anything else". Professor Banerjee then said "then action will be taken against you". There was an uproar in the college about this. Shailesh Bose resign and left his job. Suresh Chowdhury came to know about this incident and contacted Shailesh Basu. Suresh Chowdhury knew Shailesh Basu due to his sporting ability. Suresh Chowdhury he was a very rich man, and used to do various kinds of business and he was a football crazy man. He offered Shailesh Bose a job in his office, U. N. Chowdhury & Company but on one condition, he has to leave Sporting Union Club and join Jorabagan Club. Shailesh Basu agreed. He enrolled in the Jorabagan Club in 1919. And he also advise Suresh Chowdhury that the club needs a good player to get good results, which Suresh Chowdhury agreed and with his permission Shailesh Basu brought Nasha Sen from Dhaka Wari Club to Jorabagan Club.
Suresh Chowdhury was the Vice President of Jorabagan Club. However, he did not take part in the daily routine of the club. He was quite influential and he paid a lot of money to the club. At that time many members of Mohun Bagan Club were associated with Jorabagan Club. All belong to the very rich family of North Kolkata. Their severe allergies to the people of East Bengal were sometimes revealed. Such an incident gave birth to the East Bengal Club.
Mohun Bagan played Jorabagan in the semi-final of Kochbihar Club on 28th July 1920. In that match, Jorabagan Club lost by a single penalty. However, all the blame for losing the match went to Shailesh Basu. Not only Shailesh Basu but also another player Nasa Sen has been blamed. In fact, both of them were from East Bengal and the Jorabagan authorities did not like them much. But Suresh Chowdhury himselfhad brought them , that is why they could not say anything on face to face. But after the match of that day, they were finally humiliated. One or two officials of Jorabagan Club did not even leave Suresh Chowdhury. The essence of their words was, "It is better not to keep these Bangals (those who all are come from East Bengal) in the club". Suresh Chowdhury himself was from East Bengal.. So he became very unhappy with this kind of statement. He always helped the Jorabagan club financially and in various ways, and in return he did not expect this type of behavior from the club officials. On the same day, Suresh Chowdhury wrote his resignation letter and ends his relation with the Jorabagan Club.
The next day, i.e. July 29, Suresh Chowdhury called Shailesh Basu and Nasa Sen to his office. His office was in Dharmatala now which we known as Peerless Building. Shailesh Basu said that he will return to Sporting Union Club and Nasha Sen said then he will also return to Wari Club in Dhaka. But Suresh Chowdhury said he would not go back anywhere and would leave all ties with the sport if needed. Then Nasha Sen suggested why not form a club, which primarily locate the players of East Bengal located here and playing in several teams/ They would play in this club and through the game they would break the ego of the people of West Bengal (Ghatis). Suresh Chowdhury and Shailesh Basu both agreed to the proposal and decided about forming a new club. Just thinking about the name, Shailesh Basui said the name of the club should be "East Bengal Club". Hearing the name, Suresh Chowdhury objected at first. He thought that provincialism was being indulged in by doing so. Later, however, he agreed. In fact, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das had a family club. But then his name was not Deshbandhu. Now where Chittaranjan Hospital is, there was his house and club. In that club, they used to play cards, chess, etc. with their friends as a hobby, and gave the club name "East Bengal". Shailesh Basu also used to go to that club regularly. For some reason it was closed. When Shailesh Basu was thinking of the name of the new club, that name became his choice. However, it can be said that the name of East Bengal Club was given by Shailesh Basu and it was agreed by Suresh Chowdhury and Nasha Sen.
On the same day, i.e.29th July 1920, in the morning a meeting was held at Suresh Chowdhury's office and in the evening at 4 pm at Suresh Chowdhury's Jorabagan house, in the presence of Suresh Chowdhury ,Shailesh Basu, Dr. Ramesh Chandra Sen (Nasa Sen), and Arvind Ghosh. The name of the club was proposed to be East Bengal, and it was decided that players should be recruited as soon as possible to play in the Hercules Cup. The responsibility of procuring players to play in the tournament was given to Shailesh Basu. According to the calendar of that year, 1st August was a good day, so Suresh Chowdhury finalized that day as the founding day of the East Bengal Club.
Exactly three or four days later, the IFA approved the club. This was also done by Suresh Chowdhury, through his friend the then IFA Secretary Medlikat. After registering for the club that day, the three of them went to a famous studio in Dharmatala and took two pictures. Shailesh Basu and Nasa Sen are sitting in one, Suresh Chowdhury is standing behind. Another is Suresh Chowdhury is sitting in the front, Shailesh Basu and Nasa Sen are standing in the back. Three of them kept three copies with them. In the forties,. In the forties, Jyotish Guha took the picture from Shailesh Basu to make another copy. But sadly he lost it. Shailesh Basu, who lost the picture of the golden moment of club registration, suffered a lot till his last life.
Now the time came for selection of jersey. At that time very beautiful and shiny jerseys used to come from England by ship, the price of one set was twenty-five rupees. Suresh Chowdhury, along with Arvind Ghosh, ran a few shops on Esplanade, but did not like anything. At last they entered into the Whiteway & Laidlaw co department store, now which is known as Metropolitan Building.. In the shop, they saw a huge red-amber jersey displayed for advertisement. Seeing the color, both of them could not shift their eyes anywhere. Suresh Chowdhury liked it, the price is almost four times ... eighty rupees. He bought it on the same day. And wiith that red-amber jersey, East Bengal played in the Hercules Cup for the first time.. In those days it was not customary to write the name, jersey number or club name in the jersey. Due to financial problems, the club used to have only one set of jerseys at the beginning. No one but the captain could take the jersey home. So in those days who will wear which jersey become a big problem during the game. The size of the jersey had to be matched with the size of their body, perhaps because of this problem some people sewed their jersey with a thread just back of the collar and wrote the initials of their names in short. In the beginning all the jerseys were full sleeves. One set of jerseys means winter, summer, rain for ease of use all year round. A few years later, however, the half-sleeved jersey was bought.
At that time there was a 6-a-side football competition in the Shyam Park area of Kolkata, which was called the Hercules Cup. Shailesh Basu and Nasa Sen were there At first 3 players were recruited. Nageen Kali join them as goalkeepers along with Charu Basu and Bhola Sen. In the end, Gostho Pal joined as a defender. In fact, the people of East Bengal say that Gostho Pal had good relations with all the other East Bengal players. So when friends set up a club, and invite him for playing the first game, he couldn't refuse their invitation. That's right, that one game for his East Bengal club at that time was just a reflection of friendship. Gostho Pal also didn’t imagine then, that If he play a small tournament for a club that has only been established for a few days, that small club will later take the shape of a well renowned club in the map of Indian Football...
In the end, East Bengal Club formed two teams, Team "A" and Team "B"
In the “A” team the players were :-
Goalkeeper: Nagen Kali, Back: Gostho Pal, Half: Nasa Sen, Right Line: Charu Bose, Left Line: Prasanta Bardhan, Center: Shailesh Basu and Reserve Player: Amiya Banerjee (Right) and Jitu Mukherjee (Left).
And Team "B" was :-
Mani Talukder, Nani Gosai, Shashi Das, Suren Thakur, A Roy and Bhola Sen.
However, on 11 August 1920, at Shyam Park, in the first match of the Hercules Cup, East Bengal Team "A" Club, captained by Gostha Pal, defeated Metropolitan College 4-0. They won the next game also. Both the East Bengal “A” team and “B” team reaches into the semi final. Team "B" step back from the tournament, so the East Bengal "A" team got a walkover and defeated DCLI 3-1 in the final to win the Hercules Cup. Gold medals were awarded to each of the winning team members in that game.
Now Suresh Chowdhury thought that in order to make the club bigger, the talented people of the society should be associated with the club. The responsibility fell on Shailesh Basu. He first introduced Suresh Chowdhury to Roy Bahadur Tarit Bhushan Roy, the zamindar of Bhagyakul. Tarit Bhushan Roy was also very happy and after his initiative, in September 1920, the first and historic meeting was held at Tarit Bhushan Roy's house in Kumartuli. Those who were present at this meeting had their roots in East Bengal and all of them were neglected and deprived at some point. Roy Bahadur Taritbhushan Roy, Nandalal Roy, Nanilal Roy, Arvind Ghosh, Sardaranjan Roy, Suresh Chowdhury and Shailesh Basu were present on the day. Sardaranjan Roy was elected the first president of the club. He was the principal of the Metropolitan College . He was called as the father of Bengal cricket. He was also called WG Grace of Bengal. Suresh Chowdhury and Roy Bahadur Tarit Bhushan Roy were nominated as the first joint secretaries of the club.
After the establishment of the club in 1920, two things became urgent. One, playing in the division league anyway, and two, arranging a field for regular practice, and it is better if it is at the Maidan area. At that time the first division was played by Mohun Bagan and Aryan Club. They had their own fields and tents. Kumartuli was also a big club. That year, in 1920, they reached the Shield final, defeating Mohun Bagan, but they practiced at their ground in Kumartuli. Tarit Bhushan Roy and Suresh Chowdhury started looking for the field. At that time, the rule was that no field could be used by any club alone, a partner had to be taken. The Calcutta Police was then in charge of dividing the field. Taritbhushan Roy searched and saw that there was no empty field. The two well-known clubs of the two partners of Calcutta Field (now Mohun Bagan Field) are Calcutta Football Club and Calcutta Rugby Club. So there is no question of getting a share of that field. The Mohun Bagan ground (now East Bengal .Aryan ground) also has a partner called National A. C., the club is towards Behala, one of the founders is the famous Reverend Sudhir Chatterjee of the Mohun Bagan Shield winning team. Taritbhushan Roy is not a man to be subdued. As he was a solicitor himself, he was very close to the police. He found out by hiring a policeman, thatt the National A. C. club does not exist as a partner. Mohun Bagan is enjoying the whole field by showing ghostly partners. He also proved the matter to the police. As soon as the fact became known, the Mohun Bagan officials become very much annoyed . But there is nothing to do, the order came from the police, that the field should be shared half with East Bengal. At that time the Mohun Bagan field was on the slope of Fort William facing east-west. The goal post on one side is towards Red Road, the other end is towards Ganges. Towards Red Road became the place of East Bengal. Before playing in the Division League, East Bengal got the ownership of the field.
East Bengal Club has become its own field, i. F. A. Registeration has also been done, Now its need an Opportunity to play in the I.F.A registered Calcutta League. Because according to the rules of the then I.F.A,, if a new club was formed, they would have to play in the third division first. Suresh Chowdhury, Taritbhushan Rayra started trying to get the team directly into the second division league. Suddenly the opportunity arose, in early April 1921 the Tajhat Club decided they would withdraw their team from the Second Division League. Raja Gopal Roy used to run the Tajhat Club in East Bengal and he had a very good relationship with Suresh Chowdhury. So they discussed and decided that Tajhat Club will withdraw their team from the Second Division League and in that place, East Bengal Club would enter the Second Division League. The matter was not so simple. But on the strength of Suresh Chowdhury's intellect, East Bengal Club entered the Second Division League on 18 April 1921 in place of Tajhat Club, overcoming thousands of obstacles from Mohun Bagan and Aryan.
The first match is on May 2, with Shobhabazar Club. Which is a 0-0 draw. The East Bengal team that year was: Goalkeepers: Nagen Kali and Mani Talukder, Back: Bhola Sen, Vanu Dattaroy and Prafulla Chatterjee, Half Back: Prafulla Mitra, Noni Gosai, Suren Thakur, Bijay Hari Sen and Shailesh Basu, Forward: Deben Pal, Ramesh Chandra (Nasa ) Sen,(Captain), Dheera Mitra, Prasanta Bardhan, Arvind Ghosh, Nepal Chakraborty, Jitu Mukherjee and S. Das.
The first person to score for East Bengal in the Second Division League was Arvind Ghosh against St. Xavier's.
On 26 August 1921, Nasa Sen scored the first goal of the derby match for East Bengal, defeating Mohun Bagan 2-1 in the Khagendra Shield final for the first time.
Because they had to play barefoot, everyone would wrap their legs with cloth around their feet, now called crepe bandages. There was no need for a scene guard or anything like that. So at that time many of the best players had break their leg bones and leave the football field prematurely. In this case, it is understood how difficult and painful it was to play football at that time. It has never been easier for players to compete with heavy boots of the British players. It was not customary for goalkeepers to wear gloves; they used to wrap clothes in their hands. Someone would block the ball with empty hands. There were no rules to change players at half time or during the game. The team that play from the beginning had to play the whole game. Even if they were injured, they would have played in that condition. The player change rule came in European football, but it came into effect in the subcontinent many years later. In a word, playing football in such a way was quite a difficult task in the midst of various adversities. Even though, the sports style of the players of East Bengal at that time had an artistic form. The reputation of not giving up in the field and their classic style of playing spread the fame beyond the country and abroad.
For the first four years, Shailesh Basu played football for the East Bengal Club and was in charge of East Bengal Club cricket Team. But after four years, Shailesh Bose had to leave Calcutta for Dinajpur for material reasons. Coming to Dinajpur, he also started playing cricket at Dinajpur Club. He also took part in a few competitive games. He returned to Malkhannagar at the end of 1928. From then on he played cricket at Victoria Club in Dhaka. He was the captain of that club till 1947. After partition he moved to Calcutta again in 1948. Then East Bengal Club also offered him to coaching and parallelly to play in football and cricket team. But due to age issues he could not take that offer. During the partition of the country, he hurriedly left many papers, pictures and memorabilia at his home in Malkhannagar. After that he did not go to that country anymore. In 1948, East Bengal Club invited Shailesh Basu to the club, and handed him the East Bengal Club blazer. The main initiator was Jyotish Chandra Guha, the then secretary of the East Bengal Club. Shailesh Basu was an extraordinary football player as well as a skilled cricketer. At that time he played many cricket matches for Bengal. He also played hockey regularly. After the establishment of East Bengal Club, besides football, he played cricket and hockey parallelly. From the very beginning Shailesh Basu was also in charge of the cricket and hockey division.
Towards the end of his life, Shailesh Basu faced many physical problems due to old age. However, he use to keep all the news of East Bengal club. There was only one sadness, seeing the distorted writing of the exact history of the East Bengal Club. At the request of one of the senior journalist, Shailesh Bose recorded and sent a complete history of the birth of the East Bengal Club. But later it was not used in its proper sense. If it was used properly, we could know the exact history. A number of fabricated incidents related to the establishment of the club have been exposed in different places. He used to say, "I was a witness to every event at that time, but in different books, those events have been described in a distorted way, with which there is no similarity between what happened at that time."Shailesh Bose passed away in Calcutta on October 96 at the age of 98.
1924 was a significant year for the East Bengal Club. In the same year, Hemang Basu and Mona Dutta played brilliantly and East Bengal became the first team in the second division with the Cameroons "B" team. But even then, at first, the IFA Didn't want to let them get up in the first division. The rule then was that not more than two Indian clubs could play in the First Division League. Finally, as a result of the indomitable fight of Tarit Bhushan Roy and Suresh Chowdhury, IFA, allowed East Bengal as a third Indian team to play in the first division. In 1924 another great event took place. That same year, East Bengal Club had a huge success by defeating Mohun Bagan 1-0 in the Kochbihar Cup, with captain Hemang Basu scoring the winning goal
Those who played in the East Bengal team in that game : -
Moni Talukder, Prafulla Chatterjee, Bijayhari Sen, S. Nag, Nani Gosai, B. Guha, Mona Mallick, Sudhir Mitra, Mona Dutt, Hemang Basu (Captain), Nepal Chakraborty..
On 26th May, 1925, East Bengal vs. Mohun Bagan, in that match of the first round of Calcutta League, East Bengal was a new team, barely established in 1920. On the other hand, Mohun Bagan is far ahead in terms of age. But the supporters of both the parties filled the field with enthusiasm and insanity. In the first half, the game became enjoyable in the counter-attack of the two sides. In the 20th minute of the first half, when East Bengal's Surya Chakraborty's shot was blocked, Nepal Chakraborty took the shot and it goes into the net by defeating the Mohun Bagan's goalkeeper Bhaduri East Bengal went ahead by one goal. Mohun Bagan made several attacks in the second half, but all attacks were repulsed by the skill of East Bengal goalkeeper P. Das. Some of East Bengal's attacks again blocked Mohun Bagan's central back, Pal. Nepal Chakraborty's goal helped East Bengal beat Mohun Bagan by one goal in the first leg of the Kolkata League. Surya Chakraborty, Hemang Basu ,Nepal Chakraborty, Mona Dutta and Purna Das played brilliantly for East Bengal.
East Bengal team in that day's match:: Purna Das, Prafulla Chatterjee, Santosh Ganguly, Haran Saha, Noni Gosai, Bijay Hari Sen, Surya Chakraborty, Hemang Basu, Mona Dutt (captain), Nepal Chakraborty and Mona Mallick..
The history of the creation of the symbol "Torch" of the East Bengal Club :-
Almost immediately after the establishment of the East Bengal Club in 1920, the then officials of the club also chose the club jersey. But then, no symbol was chosen that way. "East Bengal Club and Calcutta 1920 or established 1920" was written in a round space. But that was in the club paper, there was no such thing as a jersey or a flag at the beginning. Several years later in some cases in the flag we find a a circular space where "East Bengal Club" is hand written.
Now let's talk about why the symbol of East Bengal Club "Tourch" (Mashal) was chosen. In 1930, East Bengal Club won all the matches by playing8 matches in the second division. The way they were playing,It was a matter of time to became champion. But as a result of the non-cooperation movement, all the other games of the league suddenly stopped. In such a situation, the team with highest points in the first division league is declared the champion by I.F.A., but East Bengal club in the second division does not declare as a champion even if they get highest points. In protest, a group of officials, members and supporters marched in a fancy procession with torches. The I.F.A.office is surrounded by them. Although it did not work out later, it did benefit the club. Officials discovered the torch's color was red and gold. And its flame is truly the symbol of a struggle. So there can be no better than this in the case of the club symbol. This is how the symbol of the club was born ten years after the birth of the club.
Because they had to play barefoot, everyone would wrap their legs with cloth around their feet, now called crepe bandages. There was no need for a scene guard or anything like that. So at that time many of the best players had break their leg bones and leave the football field prematurely. In this case, it is understood how difficult and painful it was to play football at that time. It has never been easier for players to compete with heavy boots of the British players. It was not customary for goalkeepers to wear gloves; they used to wrap clothes in their hands. Someone would block the ball with empty hands. There were no rules to change players at half time or during the game. The team that play from the beginning had to play the whole game. Even if they were injured, they would have played in that condition. The player change rule came in European football, but it came into effect in the subcontinent many years later. In a word, playing football in such a way was quite a difficult task in the midst of various adversities. Even though, the sports style of the players of East Bengal at that time had an artistic form. The reputation of not giving up in the field and their classic style of playing spread the fame beyond the country and abroad.
