Legend has it that the only time India qualified for the Football World Cup, in 1950, the team withdrew because they weren’t allowed to play barefoot. It had worked well for them in the maidans back home, they argued, and studs didn’t suit their style. The actual reasons were far more symptomatic of Indian sports– selection issues, lack of funds and internal squabbles. But why let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Every August in Bangalore comes around a tournament that brings alive an ignored football subculture in a city that’s not generally predisposed towards the game. The Independence Cup, or the Black Tournament as it’s called on the street, is an unofficial tournament that does more than keep that delightful barefoot urban legend alive. Set in a pretty but nondescript ground that’s nestled in Bangalore’s Cantonment area, once the largest South Indian military cantonment in the days of the British Raj, it is independent India’s oldest unofficial football showpiece. It’s not exactly a Fight Club that plays out in the shadows that no one can talk about, but is an underground event in every respect. It’s been going strong for over 65 years now. It’s not sanctioned by the football powersthat-be. The teams are a rule-book defying seven a side. There are no ticket sales involved. There are no seats, no changing rooms, no prize money, no scoreboards, no press and no advertising. And it’s played barefoot.

The tournament pits more than 60 teams from the slums and lower income areas of Bangalore against each other, and the popular theory that’s often cited for the barefoot style of play is a lack of funds for some teams. Playing barefoot makes it an even playing field. But one does get the feeling that, over time, the tournament has used this card to maintain its identity outside of its mainstream middle-class football compatriots. The altering of the rules feels a little like a deliberate promotion of the often ignored identities of the main players in this cast.

The teams, as well as the are predominantly from Bangalore’s Tamil Christian community. One of the largest surviving ‘converted’ communities since the British missionary days, there are over 1.5 million Tamil Christians in Bangalore, and a majority of them sit in the lower middle class to the below poverty line range. If one generously generalizes, it’d be fair to say that they are, for the most part, avid church goers and highly patriarchal, with a penchant for cheap liquor, loud fights, and drama. The new lot, with gelled hair, studded ears, tight shirts pulled taut across their bodies, are tough, blue-collar workers and cocksure. They love their movies, their superstars, Tamil music, their ‘areas’, their language and their identity. And they love their football. The cantonment is generally the domain of Bangalore’s upper middle class, and the ground itself is flanked by posh apartments and large villas. But on every Sunday, for four weeks leading up to the finals on August 15th, the roads outside the ground are transformed into chaotic parking lots, densely packed with rickshaws, cycles, low budget bikes and soupedup scooters with film star stickers. It’s like a Hell’s Angels run on a sleepy little town that leaves the residents shaking their heads The atmosphere around the ground evokes both intrigue and dread for what might follow. Vulgar team songs, drunken threats and loud opinions swirl in your ears. The smell of cheap alcohol permeates everything, and bright shirts and even brighter gold glints off your eyes. Unsurprisingly there’s not a woman in sight, although that doesn’t stop the MC from beginning every sentence with a polite ‘ladies and gentleman’. Most of the teams in the fray come from areas that are vice turfs, run by drug lords and rife with gambling and prostitution.