Mohammedan SC

In 1936 Mohammed Salim signed for Celtic in Scotland — the first Indian footballer to join a foreign club — and he did it having come out of the Kolkata side he played for in two spells. He went back to India before long.

The turn had come in 1933, when Mohammedan SC won the right to play in the Premier Division of the Calcutta Football League. A year later they took the title — the first Indian club to do so — and then kept it. Syed Abdus Samad, who had arrived in 1933, is the name that stayed attached to those years.

The Aga Khan Gold Cup in 1960 made them the first Indian club to win a tournament abroad. Much of what followed came in the smaller silverware of the domestic calendar, the Rovers Cup and the Bordoloi Trophy among it, and two Federation Cups in the mid-1980s.

The Calcutta Football League came back in 2021, then again in the two seasons after. Promotion followed the 2023-24 I-League title, and the club spent 2024-25 in the Indian Super League before dropping back down.

Home now is Kishore Bharati Krirangan in Santoshpur, 12,000 seats. The meetings with Mohun Bagan Super Giant and East Bengal FC — historically carrying a religious edge — move to the Salt Lake Stadium, where the capacity runs to 85,000.