Rainbow

In Kolkata football, the ground floor is where Rainbow lives: the Calcutta Football League's second tier, where a club plays its neighbours rather than the giants, and where finishing second twice is a career rather than a footnote. Rainbow were runners-up in Calcutta Premier Division B in 2016 and again in 2022.

The club began in Baranagar in 1956, put together by Pradip Roy and a handful of others who wanted a side of their own. The name travelled with it: Baranagore Rainbow Club first, then NBP Rainbow Athletic Club after the move associated with New Barrackpore, and since 2020 ASOS Rainbow AC, following a tie-up with the Aditya Group.

That partnership brought Debjit Ghosh in as technical director — a former India international taking charge of the football side of a club that had spent six decades without a major trophy. Aditya Chatterjee was head coach as of 2023, with Sourav Dasgupta wearing the armband.

Home is the Amal Dutta Stadium in Dum Dum, in the northern reaches of the city. Yellow shirts, black sleeves, black shorts and socks.

The league itself changed around them in June 2023, when the Indian Football Association merged the A and B divisions of the Calcutta Football League. Rainbow were placed in Group B for what the competition counted as its 125th season.

The single deepest run in the club's record came long before any of this: a semi-final in the IFA Shield in 1953.