Ivan Paul Verghese

There is a photograph somewhere from the early days of the ISL, not an official one, just something snapped on a phone, of a group of us spilling out of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi, yellow scarves and wide grins, twenty teenagers who had just watched Kerala Blasters play and couldn't quite believe this was their life now. We were schoolkids. The team trained on our school ground. We felt, absurdly and wonderfully, like we were part of it. That was 2014. The ISL was brand new, Indian...

It's strange to feel so deeply connected to a football club in a city you've never set foot in. Tottenham Hotspur call N17 their home, a corner of north London I've only ever seen through a screen and yet, somehow, they've helped me feel at home all the way in India. It started in 2012, with a team that was almost impossible not to fall in love with. Van der Vaart and Modric controlling the midfield. Lennon and Walker burning down the right. Defoe and Adebayor up front. And of course, the...