Identity, Fans and Football Clubs: A Case of United Kurseong Football Club

Abstract

Football has a long history and it is the most popular sport on the planet. However, football has not just remained a sporting activity. It has been long used a political instrument to repress and suppress and also as a tool of resistance. The arena of football is also used as an avenue to assert one’s identity. This paper looks at how a local football team was seen as a medium to assert one’s identity by Gorkha population residing in the plains of North Bengal and Bhutan. This paper is based on the reflexive account of a player’s experience. It is based on two case studies to draw correlation between identity and football.