Before we start our story about football, rather, a specific footballer – it is important to understand the world that he belonged to. The world of the late 1930s and early 1940s – when the Second World War was raging.
It was 1942. The world was burning – and South Asia was no exception.
The British had introduced cricket and football to all of their Asian colonies in the 1800s. Like India, football had become an extremely popular sport in Myanmar, then known as Burma. Although football did not become a professional sport in Burma till much later – local clubs had sprung up all over Rangoon and the amateur leagues pulled in sizable crowds. The “football stars” of the day enjoyed an economic and reputational status far less than than the “celebrities” of today – but had become known faces in the neighborhood and the town nonetheless. They obviously didn’t rake in millions in sponsorship like today, and led quite average, middle-class lives — but encountered smiles, waves and occasional cheers from locals when they were out in the neighborhood or in the market.
One of these “stars”, was Fred Pugsley – a prolific scorer in the local amateur league. Born in Rangoon of a Burmese mother and a British father (hence the English-sounding name) – Pugsley led a happy and idyllic suburban life initially, married and with a son, going about his day job and playing football in his leisure. He was liked by the football patrons and life was good.
All was well, till 1939, when the Second World War broke out. Three years into the war in 1942, Burma – still a British colony, was attacked by the Japanese forces. Within a few months, the British administration had collapsed completely and Japan replaced it with an administration of their own. Like most war-stricken regions – an exodus was immediately triggered where people started to flee from Burma into neighboring countries – a bulk of them into India where it was still “relatively safe”. Pugsley – while himself being Anglo-Burmese, decided to take his family and migrate with his Indian friends and neighbors to India.
It was not an easy journey. The refugees had to travel for almost 500 kilometers – entirely on foot, through dense forests, over mountains and across rivers. Several of them perished on the way -many of the ones who survived were injured or seriously ill. Pugsley and his family survived, but were essentially in a land which was foreign to them; they had never visited India before and didn’t know anyone here – and had no job to feed themselves.
Fred Pugsley wasn’t one to give up though.
He remembered that five years ago, a football club from Calcutta had visited Rangoon and had played some matches with the teams there. He had met and spoken with some of the club officials and players and they had liked each other. It was a long shot but he thought of trying out his luck, he didn’t have anything to lose anyway. He would travel to Calcutta, find the club and talk to their officials and try out. Who knows, if they liked his game, they might offer him a contract as a footballer and therefore a steady source of income? He needed it for his wife and son.
When Pugsley turned up at the East Bengal club tent at the Maidan in 1942, the officials were in a rather embarrassing predicament. They remembered Pugsley and didn’t doubt his skills and talent. But there were a couple of other problems.
First – the man who stood in front of them now was very different from the man they remembered from five years ago. The long journey by foot had taken its toll on Pugsley – standing in front of the club officials now was an extremely thin and sick man who was coughing up blood – the officials doubted whether he would ever be in a fit enough state to take the field.
Second – Although there had been a bunch of Bengali people who were born and raised in Burma and moved to Calcutta earlier – the British had officially partitioned “British India” and “British Burma” in 1937 and Fred Pugsley was now technically a “foreign citizen”. No foreigner had ever played for East Bengal before and none of the officials were aware of the formalities/paperwork necessary to make that happen. Bear in mind that this was 1942 and the average Indian hardly knew what a passport was – leave aside intricacies of international immigration formalities.
Still, the officials saw and understood that this was a talented footballer, a refugee who had fallen on bad times – and it was a basic human act to give him a chance. Perhaps they were subconsciously reminded of the principles under which the club was founded 25 years ago – that no capable player should be turned down from having a place in the team just because of their place of birth. Nevertheless, they made the necessary arrangements and Fred Pugsley was signed up as East Bengal’s first ever foreign player in 1942.
Pugsley just played three games in the 1942 season and then had to be benched – it was evident he was sick and fatigued and would need a lot of recuperation before he was match-fit. But in just those three games – he made his mark. His teammates and officials recognized that this was an extremely skillful player and given time – he would be a big asset. Amritabazar Patrika, in one of their reports of the Maidan matches, made a comment about this new find of East Bengal who could be promising and a future asset in attack.
Through some of the connections he made at the club and at the Maidan, Pugsley interviewed for and was offered a job in IISCO at Burnpur and moved with his family there. He would still frequently travel from Burnpur to Calcutta to play the East Bengal matches. This job with a steady income and a relatively normal life helped him improve his health to an extent. He made occasional appearances for East Bengal in 1943 and 1944 – the Second World War was at its peak and it was impossible to get frequent leaves for a person who was an Iron and Steel factory worker. Still, records state that Pugsley scored three and six goals in the two seasons respectively.
In 1945, with the war over and lives of everyone a bit easier – Pugsley was able to feature for East Bengal regularly, and it was now that he showed his true class. He flooded the Maidan with goals, had two games with hat tricks and had a season tally of 21 goals. East Bengal won the 1945 Calcutta Football League with Pugsley as one of the biggest factors – and everyone was looking forward to him playing in the IFA Shield for the club.
Unfortunately, things weren’t going quite as planned. Even though the war was technically over in Europe in April, it was still going on in the Eastern theater as Japan had still not laid down their arms. The British concentrated on winning back Burma from Japan with reinvigorated efforts – which resulted in more demand of iron and steel equipment for the Army. Ultimately, that meant Pugsley had to cancel his leave and go back to Burnpur to work at his day job, and withdraw from the tournament.
The final of the IFA Shield was scheduled to happen on August 9, 1945. If the date looks familiar to you, yes, that was the same day on which the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. East Bengal had made it to the finals and was supposed to face off Mohun Bagan. The off-field history and relationship between the clubs, the nativist-vs-immigrant sentiment akin to the Rangers vs Celtic Old Firm derby in Scotland made this one of the most widely anticipated matches of the day – the ticket sales for the match was an all-time record for Calcutta’s football games till date. This match was probably the first instance when the Boro Match or Derby craze engulfed an EB-MB game.
Pugsley was busy at the factory and hadn’t played in the tournament before – but he managed to get a day off to travel to Calcutta for the day – he wanted to watch his team play. Legend has it that he visited the East Bengal tent an hour before the match was about to start to cheer his teammates; Somana, eventually an East Bengal legend – was supposed to play in the match as a centre-forward – but he saw and persuaded Pugsley to start the match in his place and even offered him his own red-and-gold jersey.
The match would end 1-0 in favour of East Bengal, with a goal from, no marks for guessing that, Fred Pugsley – winning East Bengal their second IFA Shield. This was East Bengals’ very first ‘double’ (CFL + Shield).
Pugsley continued to be a prolific scorer for East Bengal – he scored all seven goals in a 7-0 win against Rajputana. If he had played for a few more years for East Bengal with the same level of performance, he would probably be remembered today as one of the East Bengal legends. However, with the Second World War being over in 1945, Pugsley returned to Rangoon the next year – still recovering from the trauma of the war, he sought to live out the rest of his life in his hometown in peace and in relative obscurity. Burma gained independence from the British just a year after India in 1948 – so Pugsley spent the final years of his life in peace as a free man in an independent country.
It is only befitting that East Bengal, once taunted as a “refugee club” by one of its former opponents, signed Fred Pugsley as their first ever foreign player – an actual wartime refugee immigrant who went on to shine for his team and show the fans what a talented immigrant is capable of if given the proper opportunities.
Sources:
– IFA Website
– CFL Website
– Fred Pugsley, Newsclick – Jaydeep Basu
– Burma – Insurgency and Politics of Ethnicity – Martin Smith
– The Union of Burma: A Study of the First Year of Independence – William Tinker
