some legends are born out of fabled tales unverifiable but ubiquitous and soaked in tradition some legends are as elusive as a dream as vague as a vignettethe legend of pradip kumar banerjee the venerable pk to everyone is however selfmade built on the foundation of a dazzling career as player and coach and subsequently passed on to generations of illustrious students who have served indian football with distinctionhaving shepherded east bengal to 30 trophies and mohun bagan to 23 he stood like a colossus for about three decades bringing the best out of his players and inspiring them to embellish indian football with performances that are part of indian footballs folkloreborn to prabhat and bina banerjee at mainaguri in jalpaiguri district in 1936 he was named pradip as he was the first child to light up the familythe journey that he began with a santosh trophy campaign for bihar as a 15yearold and went on to illuminate indian football for about five decades in various capacities has reached its final destinationa man for all seasons and equipped with extraordinary management skills to transform adversity into antidote pk will be remembered for his famous vocal tonic those legendary prematch peptalks he delivered to inspire players to defy oddsduring the federation cup final in 1980 when a depleted and newlook east bengal entered the eden gardens starstudded mohun bagan were expected to have a cakewalk but pk pulled off a coup with newcomer majid bishkar comparing him with the 1979 iranian revolution leader ayatollah khomeini and triggering the birth of a legend around the iranian himself it was the stuff folklores are made of the result was an oddsdefying 11 draw which led to east bengal holding the trophy as joint winnershe had done something similar with shibaji banerjee at the same venue three years ago spurring him on with a motivational talk which saw the mohun bagan goalkeeper produce a stellar show against peles new york cosmosyet the legend of pk is not a straightforward narrative documented in his records as a manager his legacy will more significantly be remembered for presiding over a time when india dared to brush shoulders with global giants a twotime olympian he was part of indian footballs bestever performance on global stage when they finished fourth in the melbourne games in 1956 and went on to lead the national team four years later at the rome games however the icing on the cake of what is still regarded as the golden age of indian football came in the jakarta asian games in 1962 he scored in the final against south korea as india rode the brilliance of the holy trinity pk chuni goswami and tulsidas balaram to the gold medalfor someone who never played for mohun bagan and east bengal and stayed loyal to eastern railway for 13 straight seasons helping his team break the big twos duopoly in the 1958 edition of calcutta football league pk carved a