<img title="Representational picture" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2017/may/17-indian-rail.jpg" alt="Representational picture" width="435" height="290" /> Representational Picture
Professional commitments forced three well-known Indian footballers, representing East Bengal&nbsp;at the club level, to travel in a general train compartment.&nbsp;
National team players Arnab Mondal, Narayan Das and Mehtab Hossain were returning home after representing East&nbsp;Bengal in the Federation Cup tournament at Cuttack.&nbsp;
Travelling without reservation has its own perils and Das&nbsp;was seen sitting on his kit bag next to the lavatory of the&nbsp;Jan Shatabdi Express. &nbsp;They reached the city in the afternoon.&nbsp;East Bengal were shown the door by arch-rivals Mohun Bagan with a 0-2 defeat in the semifinals last evening.
According to team manager and former India defender Manoranjan Bhattacharya, they had arranged a bus after finding that all flights were full.
But former India international Mehtab and current players&nbsp;Mondal, Das, Mohmmad Rafique, Subhasish Roy Chowdhury and&nbsp;goalkeeping coach Abhijit Mondal decided to take the first&nbsp;train back home without reservation.
"One cannot book tickets in advance because you don't&nbsp;know the result beforehand. We arranged a bus at the last minute but had to cancel eventually because some of them went&nbsp;on their own," Bhattacharya said.
East Bengal midfielder Mehtab chose not to blame the club&nbsp;for the fiasco.
"They are not to be blamed. We requested the assistant coach to let us go, as we had office games. But all flights&nbsp;were full. We were offered to go by a bus but it could take around 12 hours to reach Kolkata. So, we decided to take the&nbsp;morning train," he said.
The rest of the team travelled by private vehicles. A club insider however blamed East Bengal. "There was no top official who accompanied the team to&nbsp;Cuttack. Situation would have been different then," he said.&nbsp;
With their second derby defeat in a row to Mohun Bagan, East Bengal capped a terrible season.

Professional commitments forced three well-known Indian footballers, representing East Bengal at the club level, to travel in a general train compartment

When East Bengal footballers traveled in train without reservations

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Professional commitments forced three well-known Indian footballers, representing East Bengal at the club level, to travel in a general train compartment

When East Bengal footballers traveled in train without reservations

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When East Bengal footballers traveled in train without reservations

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