Bhowmick, celebrated player, coach, dies

Subhas Bhowmick, a player par excellence, who became a successful coach

- Nilesh Bhattacharya

Kolkata: Flamboyance has always been married with fantasy in the story of Subhas Bhowmick, a prolific striker who brought a sense of modernity to Indian club football in his later avatar as a hugely successful coach.

An intense reader of the game, he could traverse with consummate ease from Jose Mourinho’s mannerisms to Pep Guardiola’s mind to the teachings of Bengal’s mystic guru in the 19th century, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. A chain smoker, he always made it clear how he imitated the habit from another football legend. “Johan Cruyff is my guru in football coaching and, you know, he was a smoker,” he used to remark.