Where football became folklore: A Kasaragod village's century-long love affair with the game

Kasaragod: Every evening, they return. Schoolboys arrive first. College students follow. Then come the young men, some back from work, others home from distant cities or countries. Finally, the elderly drift in, drawn by decades of muscle memory. As the clock strikes five, a whistle pierces the air and the familiar chorus rises from the ground—boots thudding against the turf, dust swirling under quick feet, teammates calling for the ball, and old-timers cheering from the sidelines.

In Mogral, a coastal village at the northern tip of Kasaragod in Kerala, this has been the rhythm of life for more than a century. The boys playing here today are rarely the first footballers in their families. Their fathers played on this ground. Before them, their grandfathers did too.

And in Mogral, known for its Mappila pattu tradition, football has its own beats, its own ballads. Over the decades, as the game took root in the village, its poets began celebrating football through Mappila songs, composing verses on legendary players, local clubs and famous victories. "If we had something to sell, we had a song for it. If there were a flood, we had a song for it. We had songs for fishing and farming. And when football was played, poets came to the ground and composed instant ballads praising the game," says Anwar T K, Joint Secretary of Kasaragod Sahitya Vedi.

That marriage of football and folklore still defines this village. Founded in 1918, Mogral Sports Club is among the oldest football clubs in northern Kerala. Over the decades, it has produced Santosh Trophy players, university captains and district champions. This year, two of its players reached Indian football's premier domestic tournament. Aboobacker Dilshad represented Kerala, the runners-up, and Mohammed Shahamath K M represented Daman & Diu. Shields and trophies weathered by time line the walls of its old club office.

Ask the village how football arrived here, and the answer comes wrapped in folklore. The story begins with a seaman named Mamoonhi.

According to village elders, Mamoonhi worked aboard a merchant ship that sailed to Russia. There, he watched people kicking around a strange leather ball. Curious, he bought one and brought it home to Mogral. The villagers had never seen such a game before. "I have crossed 80 now. Even when I was a child, football was already being played here," recalls A K Abdul Rahiman. "People called it the Russian Ball because Mamoonhi had brought it from Russia." Whether history or village legend, the story has survived for generations. So have many others.

One of the most enduring tales dates back to the years before Independence, when a British military contingent—camped at the Travellers' Bungalow in Narayanamangalam, near Kumbla—organised exhibition football matches. The main rivals of the British soldiers were the Mogral Sports Club (MSC) and Kumbla Lucky Star, according to an article published in the MSC's golden jubilee souvenir in 1983. "Under the captaincy of M P Muhammed, Mogral players produced outstanding performances that earned widespread admiration," wrote former Mogral player M A Abdul Rahiman, who was then in Jubail Industrial City in Saudi Arabia.

Mogral Sports Club went on to defeat the British team and bring home the shield. The achievement is still spoken of with pride in the village.

However, Mogral—known for its Mappila pattu, celebrates football not just through its trophies but also through music. Among the village's celebrated Mappila poets was the late A K Abdul Kader, an improvisational poet who composed verses on football. His brother Abdul Rahiman, despite his age, still tries to recall the opening lines of one such ballad: "Pragaditha Pathimogralil Prasithoyode Football Premigal..." The rest slipped away with time.

Kader belonged to an extraordinary generation of poets that included Savukkar Kunhi Fakeeh, his son Bala Ibnu Fakeeh, the creator of Pakshipattu Naduthoppil Abdulla, Naduthoppil Mamunhi Maulavi, the woman poet Naduthoppil Kunhayishu, and Ahmed Ismail.

Ahmed Ismail, Anwar says, was perhaps Kerala's first poet to compose a ballad on football, celebrating the famed Mohammedan Sporting Club of Calcutta.

If the poets gave Mogral its football folklore, one man ensured the game itself never stopped. 'Kuthiripp' Muhammed was a beedi worker, but football was his passion in life. Every evening, he walked to the ground with a football tucked under one arm and a whistle between his lips, gathering children from across the village for practice. Rain or shine.

"If the youth still come to this ground every evening, it is because of the discipline Kuthiripp instilled in them over four decades," says Mahin M, a retired teacher who served as the headmaster of Government Vocational Higher Secondary School, Mogral, for 23 years.

Kuthiripp was also the neighbour of the club's young vice-president, Mohammed 'Smart'. "As a child, I watched him wash the jerseys, mend the football boots, and return to the ground the next day with everything ready for the children. Every single day," Mohammed recalls. "His clothesline was always full of football jerseys. Even the tiny room where he rolled beedis was packed with jerseys, boots, sports magazines and books. It was a beautiful sight."

Kuthiripp Mohammed became the club's manager in 1981 and remained at the helm until his death in December 2021 at the age of 81. By then, at least two generations of footballers had passed through his hands. Perhaps his greatest reward came in 2013, when footballers from Mogral living in the UAE invited him to Dubai, where the lifelong Brazil fan met Diego Maradona. When he died, Kerala's ace footballer I M Vijayan posted that photograph on his social media and recalled Kuthiripp's service to football.

The Kasaragod District Panchayat later honoured his contribution by naming the club's football ground, which belongs to GVHSS, Mogral, after him. If you are wondering how he came to be known as Kuthiripp, the nickname dates back to his younger days, when the die-hard communist staged a sit-in (kuthiripp) protest for the rights of beedi workers.

Today, the mantle of the club has passed to another devoted football man, M L Abbas, fondly called MLA. His son, Aboobacker Dilshad, was part of Kerala's Santosh Trophy squad in the 2025-26 season. "I learned football on this ground," says the central midfielder. "The young boys here are incredibly competitive. If you think they're just kids, they'll surprise you."

Mogral has produced players for district and university teams and, more recently, the Santosh Trophy. P C M Kunhi represented Kerala in the 1960s before captaining the Kerala University team. Decades later, another son of Mogral, P C Asif, was the manager of the Kerala side that lifted the Santosh Trophy in 2018. Asif's father, P C Kunhi Packy, was the star player and captain of the club. This year, Aboobacker Dilshad and Mohammed Shahamath carried that legacy forward.

Yet Mahin believes the village’s greatest achievement is not the players it has sent out, but that the game continues here every day. "The boys on this ground today are the third and fourth generations of footballers from Mogral."

Shahamath, who now works in Saudi Arabia, makes it a point to return to the ground every evening whenever he is home on leave. "Look around during practice," he says. "Sometimes, the crowd is as big as it is for a tournament. The intensity of the matches is high because of the crowd," says the Daman & Diu player. Dilshad finds the back of the net with just one line: "All that Mogral has is football."