Colaba Municipal School wins U-17inter-school rugby

An incredible story of Colaba Municipal school's u-17 team which won a touch rubgy title yesterday

Skipper Gauresh Mandal breathed life into a clicheu00a0-- self help is the best helpu00a0-- as he led his school, Colaba Municipal School, to a comprehensive 9-3 victory against Gurunanak (Navy Nagar) in the under-17 boys' Mumbai Schools Touch Rugby Tournament final at the Bombay Gymkhana yesterday.



What puts extra sheen on the sterling success of the team is the fact that the boys have achieved this without support from their school, monetary or by way of any special facilities.

Catering jobs
"We didn't get any support from our school, we collected our own pocket money and we even did a few catering jobs through which we got around Rs 130 per night to buy our own rugby kit," Gauresh says. "While some of us served water, others worked at the dish counter."

Captain-cum-coach
Gauresh (16) was also part of Maharashtra's under-16 rugby team that defeated Manipur in the final of the Inter-state Under-16 Rugby Sevens Tournament at New Delhi last year. Besides playing rugby and football for his school, the talented skipper has been coaching the under-12, u-14, u-17 boys' and the u-14 girls' rugby team of his school for the last two years.

"This is the first time we have won. We want to take this trophy and the match pictures, after which we would display them in the school. Next year, hopefully, the school would support us in some way," says Gauresh.

Unexpected help
Help though has come from unexpected quarters. School peon Suresh Dorugade accompanies the team for almost all their matches and also pays the fare for commuting to match venues from his own pocket. Now, those students have repaid Dorugade for his sterling effort, with a trophy.

Incidentally, the team, with a majority players hailing from Ambedkar Nagar in Colaba, calls itself King Cobra. The name was painted on their rugby jerseys.

Well, all one can say is that these 'cobras' playing without finances to back them and funding their own rugby kits have proved to be kings of the rugby field.