Our Victory, Winning Football in All India ISM Dhanbad Parakram Event.

Our Victory, Winning Football in All India ISM Dhanbad Parakram Event.
Swapnil Roy, 2023, Aerospace Engineering & Applied Mechanics

“It is an honour to announce that our college football team has emerged as the Champions in the football tournament, organised by IIT(ISM) Dhanbad, as a part of the PARAKRAM’23 event, which is one of the largest sports-fest of India.”

The year 2023, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad was all set for their much-awaited revival of Parakram, eastern India’s prestigious and also one of the largest inter college sports festival. The event was held from 17th-19th March, the three-day extravaganza invites athletes from many parts from India, and our IIEST, Shibpur also decided to participate.

After qualifying through the rounds, we finally met the host team ISM (Dhanbad) in the final. We could display our good teamwork, skill, and determination holding our nerves and showed great character and clinched the win in the tiebreaker by a scoreline of 4-1.”

The joint top scorers of the tournament, myself Swapnil Roy and Pritam Mandal, both of IIEST’s were instrumental in our success. Our performances not only helped the team win crucial matches but also boosted the morale of the entire team. The participating colleges in football, including IIEST, were host IIT(ISM) Dhanbad, NIT Durgapur, IISER Kolkata, BIT Sindhri, IMU Kolkata, NIT Rourkela, and Asansol Engineering College. During the tournament, we won against teams like IISER, Kolkata; NIT, Durgapur and IIT(ISM), Dhanbad in our path to become the Champion.

This tournament was our last shot at victory for the season…..we all were strong and pumped up but a slight fear of defeat had kept us grounded to reality. We were ready for whatever was to come and for whatever that had to be sacrificed.

The group stage was the 1st battle to be won and BIT Sindri gave us a tough fight with match ending in a tie giving us a humble start for the tournament and the next match was against the home team IIT-DHANBAD resulting in a defeat with a score line of 2-1. We had lost that fight, but the battle was not over yet. The two matches taught us the importance of teamwork and the courage to fight even when we had lost everything. We looked into our flaws, motivated each other and built up the strategies through team meetings. Eventually we were all armoured for a big win in the last group match against IISER-KOLKATA. This was a make-or-break match, and we needed a score line of 2-0 or better to advance to the semi-final.

On the field we were fighting for ourselves, for each other and for the name on our jerseys. Eventually we advanced to the semi-final with a 3-1 victory. Now what lay in front of us was NIT-DURGAPUR with their mighty defence with two stout Nigerian players on their side, but we were not there to give up. If worked and we did prove this by defeating them by 2-0 and advancing to the finals. This was the very first time that reached a final we as a team, but instead of celebration, we knew that the journey was not over yet the peak was yet to be conquered and behold standing there was the mighty ISM-DHANBAD who had already defeated us in the group stage.

Most of our players were injured, exhausted, but we knew this was our shot at at gold. We fought with all the blood, sweat and tears but our worst fear turned out to be true, the game headed for the penalties. With hopes, prayers and fighting spirit we thrashed them with a score of 4-1 and finally conquered the peak. With teamwork no mountain is tall enough and no ocean is vast enough.

Throughout the tournament we all contributed our best, players performed exceptionally well and having said that, if I take a particular name and leave out the other players that won’t be fair on my part. Before and during the tournament, every day we practiced for an hour or so, in the field. There was no such award for Man of the Tournament, we believe everyone of our team were so. Our playing 11 were:
• Swapnil Roy (Captain) (2023, Aerospace Engineering & Applied Mechanics) Right Wing
• Dipak Marndi (2025, Mechanical Engineering) – Goalkeeper
• Anirban Samanta (2023, Electrical Engineering) – Centre Back
• Anirban Mazumder (2024, Architecture)- Centre Back
• Indravo Ghosh (2025, Architecture) – Right Back
• Penu Romin (2024, Civil Engineering) – Left Back
• Suman Mantri (2025, Electrical Engineering) – Defencive Midfielder
• Asher Cintury (2024, Mechanical Engineering) – Attacking Midfielder
• Gaynom Lepcha (2023, Civil Engineering) – Attacking Midfielder
• Debmalya Hembram (2023, Electrical Engineering) – Attacking Midfielder
• Pritam Mandal (Metallurgy and Materials Science, PhD student) – Centre Forward
• Muhammed Ajib KP (2026, Architecture) – Left Wing
Anirban Mazumder and Debmalya Hembram, used to get substituted during half time as both of them were injured and were not in a condition to play the entire length of the match.
Our team also had additional players:
• Avik Das, Electronic and Tele-Communications, PhD student
• Ardhendu Sarkar, Computer Science and Technology, PhD student
• Ankur Roychowdhury, 2024, Information Technology
• Dhanush Bala, 2025, Mechanical Engineering
• Shridhar Murmu, 2025, Mining Engineering
• Sayak Chowdhury, 2026, Information Technology

We were accompanied by Manoj Das, our Physical Instructor and Pintu Da, Ground Caretaker. It was a truly memorable tournament for us winning a tournament where all the institutes of repute came together for the contest.

It’s also my pride to mention here that earlier in the year 2019 we won invitational Inter College Football Tournament organised by The Calcutta National Medical College where we emerged as the champions, defeating Amity University Kolkata in the final. Apart from the host and Amity University, the other participating colleges were Calcutta Medical College, Calcutta national Medical College, R.G. Kar Medical College, Meghnad Saha Institute of Technology, Budge Budge Institute of Technology, and a few more. Being in the first year at that time, I was one of the youngest member of the winning team.

On behalf of Sahityika Team
“Congratulations to the IIEST Football Team for your outstanding performance in both the tournaments. This victory is a testament to your determination, hard work, skill, and you have made our institution proud,”