vadodara if you pass from the bylanes of some old city areas chances are that you may come across youngsters mumbling kabaddi kabaddi and trying to grab each other in open grounds while vadodara is better known as a centre for art and culture the city has also been a nursery for indias traditional sport kabaddi despite the dominance of cricket over last seven decades kabaddi has managed to not just survive but also retain barodians interest the city has about 15 kabaddi clubs that coach youngsters in the sport and also hold tournaments regularly barodians are devoted to this sport there is little money in kabaddi but passion is what drives the citizens to pursue the sport here the city boasted of sporting culture from the gaekwadi era when all traditional games were promoted by the royal family fortunately interest in a sport like kabaddi prevailed in last few decades said dinesh patel general secretary of amateur kabaddi federation of india akfi such was the citys dominance over the sport that vadodara kabaddi teams have won majority of the statelevel tournaments held in gujarat since 1972of about 40 statelevel tournaments vadodara has won 28 in the categories of subjunior junior and senior the city has also produced several international players in fact of the nine international kabaddi players produced from gujarat seven are from vadodara said tushar arothe joint secretary gujarat state kabaddi association between 1970s and 1980s the city had about 70 kabaddi clubs but the numbers went down due to dominance of other sports and waning interest in traditional games among the prominent clubs that still coach kabaddi are chittesthan vyayamshaala maharashtra kreeda mandal pragati kreeda mandal samarth yuvak mandal and dutt yuvak mandal arothe said the sport is played mostly in akhaadas and open grounds in wadi salatwada dandia bazaar and baranpura our akhaada is about 70 years old and we have been coaching kabaddi and organizing tournaments since decades earlier we used to get 60 to 70 players but now the number has almost halved interest in the sport though has increased after kabbadi leagues started in the country youngsters are gradually taking up this sport again said vikram surve of chittesthan vyayamshaala