City website reveals details of a historical match

According to city based football website DehradunFootball.com, nobody ever had information that a multi-star team of Northern Command X1- otherwise known as Tommy Walkers X1-had played in Dehradun in the 1940s. 

The team consisted of footballers, who represented famous clubs like Spurs, Manchester United, Glasgow Ranger, leith Athletics, Nottingham Forest,  Rutherglen Glencairn and England/Scotland in international championship. 

According to Rohit Goyal of DehradunFootball.com, this was the possibly the biggest match in the history of Doon football featuring star footballers like Tid Ditchburn who represented the England football team and Spurce, Robert Jack Robinson, Johnny Morris (both played for Manchester United), Cyril Trigg (highest goal scorer for Birmingham City 1946 and 1947 season), Eddy Rutherford (represented Scotland national team), etc to mention a few. 

The match between Tommy Walkers XI and Dehradun Area team took place on February 22, 1946 at the historic Pavilion Ground. Mick Clarke, a resident of Devon in England, found a football match card from the trunk of his father Victor Clark- who served in the Royal Mechanical Engineers. After providing his services in Burma during World War II, Victor was possibly at Deolali (Madhya Pradesh) waiting to return to England. He either came all the way from Deolali or was near Dehradun in February 1946 and came to watch the football match here. 

Mick Clark says, “I had no idea about anything to do with the match until I found the programme for it  in an old box that my father had kept from his time in Burma and India. He did say about the holding camp and how there was nothing to do while they waited for repatriation. I have no doubt that the match took place as surviving relatives of the players have confirmed knowledge of it.”

Such matches were organized to lift the sprite of soldiers and there were limited entertainment activities at that time. Players from different army units formed the Dehradun XI side- including four from the Indian Military Academy. Now, DehradunFootball.com will be making attempt to gather information about the Dehradun team members and also the score of the match.

According to Goyal, very few documents about football in Dehradun are available in the city. The Dehradun football website has collected many rare photographs and newspaper clippings- but most date back to the 1950s and 60s. In its new endeavour, the website will be collecting rare video footage of Dehradun football team. In this process the website has recently obtained 1953 footage of the Durand Cup football final in which Mohun Bagan defeated Indian Military Academy 4-0. But, as the footage is hazy, with no audio, the football website has approached the Durand Society to help them in authenticating the video.