Mumbai's top celebrities are kicking it hard at local Bandra football league

Gabriella Demetriades at the St Andrew's turf. Pic/Shadab Khan

It's a weekday evening, and South African model-turned-designer Gabriella Demetriades is in the midst of football practice at the St Andrews' Turf Park in Bandra. Dressed in workout gear, she is the lone woman in the team. As she deftly tackles her opponents, it's evident that Demetriades, ranked one of the world's hottest women by a leading fashion magazine in 2012, is no stranger to rough games. "But let me tell you, my girls are far more rough.

Jackyy Bhagnani, owner of Raging Bulls

The boys are terrified of them," she laughs. Demetriades owns Demolition, a team that is part of the women's edition of Roots Premier League (RPL), a league for footballers with day jobs, most of whom live in and around Bandra. Currently in its second season, RPL which is also India's first competitive amateur league, was launched last year by Harpreet Baweja, owner of Butter Events and Aroma Thai Spa, along with actor and event planner Santino Morea.

Mandana Karimi plays against team Demolition at the Bandra turf

In a year's time, RPL has gained a steady following among the city's swish set. While the six women's teams are owned by actors Mandira Bedi, Mandana Karimi, Amrita Puri, blogger Malini Agarwal a.k.a. MissMalini, designers Nandita Mahtani, Dolly Sidhwani and Bhavana Pandey and beauty entrepreneur Adhuna Bhabani, the men's team owners include actors Rannvijay Singh, Jackyy Bhagnani, Aparshakti Khurana (Ayushman's brother), Kunal Kapoor, Prabal Punjabi and host Samir Kochhar. And, they all have different reasons for flocking to the turf.

Adhuna Bhabani with her team

A team effort
On the day of our visit, Demetriades is sans her team - they practice on weekends. But that hasn't stopped from her from dropping by for a game of football. In fact, back in her hometown in Port Elizabeth, the 30-year-old would play hockey at the university level, but when she moved to India a couple of years ago, she was disappointed to see that Mumbai lacked a culture of outdoor sports. "That's how I would end up playing with the boys here at St Andrew's," she says. These days, Demetriades's passion for the game has found more takers. She plays with 100 other women, all amateur football players, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They have a WhatsApp group where they decide on timings and discuss matches.

Malini Agarwal with Bhabani

As team owner, Demetriades prefers to be involved in every minute detail - from deciding the name, logo, selecting players and discussing strategies. It's a sentiment that's shared by other team owners too. Mandira Bedi recalls the time she sat with her team to find a name which would succinctly sum up their character. "We were racking our brains when somebody suggested the name Goal Digger, and we said voila! This is it," she laughs. Her team's jersey too was a team decision. The uniforms are black and gold with a skull, football and two spades.

Harpreet Baweja, owner of Roots Premier League

But a year-and-a-half ago, when Baweja envisioned the league it was difficult bringing even 20 people together. "Being avid amateur footballers, we wanted to bring like-minded people on field. I never thought it would become this big. But slowly as we began playing, more people started joining us from the area. It became a sort of a community," he recalls. That's when Baweja and Santino realised that the game's potential goes beyond it just being a physical activity.

View gallery: Ranveer Singh, Nandita Mahtani, Mandana Karimi at a football game

"It became a medium to bond, respect, trust, communicate and become healthier. I think that's what draws people here," he says. Actor Kunal Kapoor who has played at the turf in the past, believes that's what makes the league a social enterprise. "It's not only about the sport, but also about getting people together. It's a place where you meet, hang out with friends and people that love the sport as much as you do," he says. While Kapoor tries to make it for most matches, work commitments often play spoilsport. Right now, his primary job is motivating the boys on the pitch to score goals and motivate them off pitch to raise funds for Slum Soccer, an organisation which uses football to bring about a change in the lives of street dwellers.

Thanks to the glamour quotient involved, the weekly Wednesday matches have become crowd pullers for the paparazzi what with the likes of Ranveer Singh, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Dino Morea and Mandana Karimi as players. There are some unexpected and unlikely faces too. Bedi was surprised to see her son's school teacher playing one of the matches. "I did a double take when I saw her. She's an American who moved to Mumbai four years ago and has been playing here for a few weeks," she says.

How they roll
For now, the league allows players to be drafted through an auction process (with an investment of R5 lakh), have their names printed on jerseys and participate in weekly games that are planned and organised against other teams in the league. "We have a format where we just plug in the team names. It's a random set-up that gives each team equal game slots," he says.

Bhavana Pandey

Matches are held every Wednesday night from 8 pm to 11 pm. Needless to say, the energy during these hours is electrifying. Agarwal, a TV host and entrepreneur, says it is the camaraderie that she looks forward to the most. "Because it's women empowering women. If you drop by for the matches, you'll see everybody cheering for the teams, and doing a huddle. It's great fun," she says. Her Instagram posts, too, are peppered with pictures and boomerangs from the matches. While Agarwal has been involved in the women's league since inception, she admits she knew little about the rules of the game when she signed up. At the time, having been approached by the owners, it was the cause that inspired her to sign on the dotted lines. "It seemed legit where the idea was to support women and the sport. This wasn't a commercial, money-making business," she says.

Adhuna Bhabani and Nandita Mahtani

While the game may be a hobby for some, others are using the sport as a means of social outreach. Mandana Karimi, who plays as a defender for team Love Gen, has teamed up with an NGO to make her own team comprising underprivileged girls. "Football helped me get over a tumultuous period of my life when I separated from my husband. I felt it has the potential to empower," she says. All teams have partnered with a suitable NGO of their choice where they donate the proceedings. Jackyy Bhagnani is the latest to join the league with his team named Raging Bulls. For him, the decision to acquire a football team was also an extension of his recently-launched NGO Kasrat that promote fitness among children in BMC schools. "But there was also the guilty pleasure of being called a team owner of a football league. As kids, we have grown up watching matches of Chelsea and Manchester United so there was a thrill in this," he says.

While the matches are a lot about camaraderie, there's no denying the competitive element involved. Bedi whose team has lost two matches this season is optimistic. "What we need is a couple of more sessions together. I'm sure we'll break the jinx," she laughs.

View gallery: Ranbir Kapoor, Ahan Shetty, Ishaan Khattar, Akash Ambani play football

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