Indian football site wins blogging award in Manchester

Goalden Times (GT), a not-for-profit blogging site is the first Indian site to receive such an award.

A blogging site dedicated to football, run by alumni from JNU, IIM and IIT won the award for the Best Established Football Blog (Fans’ Choice) at the Football Blogging Awards (FBA) in Manchester last week. Goalden Times (GT), a not-for-profit blogging site is the first Indian site to receive such an award.

GT whose motto is “Ludo Ergo Sum (I Play therefore I am) is a “labour of love” of people who met on social media – first Orkut and then Facebook – and after years of interacting in the virtual word about the beautiful game, decided to take it a step forward through a site that would give enthusiasts platform to give an alternate perspective of the game.

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Banking on meticulous research and a no-plagiarism policy, it does not mind delaying publishing of blogs to ensure authenticity and unbiasedness. Known for its unconventional take on football – for example an article currently on the site is by one of its founding members Debajyoti Chakrabarty, an alumnus of IIT and IIM, on the use of data modelling in the turnaround of English club Brentford FC. Instituted in 2012, FBA was started with a vision of unearthing the brightest talents in football journalism globally.

GT competed with the likes of Forza Italian Football and The Football Pink – to win the judges’ choice award in the category for the title of the best established blog (fans’ choice).

“We are people from diverse backgrounds, there is one IT professional, two each from IIT and IIM and now hold high flying jobs in big ticket consultancy firms and also a clutch of youngsters just out of college and university whom we are grooming as writers. We write about how football impacts lives,” says Indranath Mukherjee, a former student of JNU and an analytics professional and one of the editors of GT.