There’s one football club in the heart of Kolkata, though, which isn’t quite taking the beaten track. A fledgling club formed in the summer of 2007, Sabuj Maroon Swapno is the fan club of Asia’s oldest football club Mohun Bagan, and it is arguably India’s only fan club that caters to the needs of unsung heroes.

One look at the city-based fan club’s breathtaking activities — all aimed at social causes — will tell you how the young body of the football fanatics has fast turned into a force to reckon with in barely eight months.

And behind Sabuj Maroon’s reputation of fast becoming Mohun Bagan’s guardian angel is the young and dynamic Partha Roy. It was football-crazy Partha’s brainchild to transform just another online football fans’ community into the country’s only fan body that caters to the needs of the club’s less-celebrated sections like the working force and the nursery wing.

It was Partha and a few dedicated associates’ bold call that saw over scores of members of the fan club’s initial online Orkut community assemble at Mohun Bagan Club’s premises one rainy afternoon on June 17, 2007. There’s been no looking back ever since, with the active membership catapulting to over 175 by now, with old warhorses Partha, Sanmit Sarkar, Sandipan Gupta, Arindam Banerjee and a few others still chugging along. And then, of course, there’s the support from Mohun Bagan Club secretary Anjan Mitra.

“Most fan clubs are busy celebrating their teams’ successes. Our focus has been different right from the start — to do something for the neglected sections of Mohun Bagan club, like the working staff. And then there is the supply line, the youngsters, who are the future of Bengal football. They are our focus,” the fan club’s president Partha asserts.

In a first for any fan club in India, Sabuj Maroon has had its hands full looking after Mohun Bagan Club’s ground staff, canteen boys and, most importantly, the nursery team that holds the key to the club’s future. Sabuj Maroon members have occasionally set a precedent for other fan clubs, organising programmes in which new clothes, apparel and utility goods were distributed among Mohun Bagan’s ground staff and canteen staff.

And then there is the pledge to look after the all-important nursery team. Apart from merely cheering for the young guns, Sabuj Maroon has not just taken responsibility of providing them the much-needed gear. Partha & Co go as far as furnishing the kids with gym facilities, accompanying them to various tournaments, helping them out with training arrangements and giving them incentives.

As Partha says, there’s even more to be done. “Merely providing the nursery boys with kits and equipment isn’t enough. We wanted to do something more useful in practical terms. So, we approached AMRI Hospital and worked out a fully free medical check-up deal with them for Mohun Bagan’s nursery wing’s boys.”

Another heartening milestone in Sabuj Maroon’s short “career” is the moving initiative of renovating the age-old decaying plaques that were once put up to commemorate the Mohun Bagan Club’s first IFA Shield victory way back in 1911.