Mokokchung has a long footballing history dating back to the pre-independence era, and owns the remarkable distinction of producing independent India’s football team captain to the London Olympics 1948 in the person of Dr. T. Ao, but World Cup fervor rising to fever pitch is a relatively recent phenomenon. It can be said that fans hoisting the national flags of their favorite teams is an even more recent phenomenon. Here is a brief account of how football fans in Mokokchung started the ‘tradition’ of hoisting the flags of their favorite World Cup teams.
… and then came the FIFA World Cup 2006 Germany. As in the years before, football fans enthusiastically welcomed the World Cup but with a difference this time. With Germany coming into the tournament as hosts and as strong title contenders, their fans in Mokokchung upped the ante. For the first time in record, fans hoisted the Germany flag in Mokokchung’s Arkong Ward which was published in The North East Herald, an English newspaper daily now out of publication.
Lawrence Imchen, the journalist who photographed the fans along with the hoisted flag, attests that it was the first in Mokokchung. Sademmeren, the Germany fan who first hoisted the flag, was pictured along with his friend Aongsen Aier who is actually an England fan. Other Germany fans in Arkong Ward followed Sademmeren and hoisted their own flags and made banners and car flags. A photo of football fans with Germany flags was also published in The Morung Express and the vernacular Ao Milen.
News about this spread like wildfire and passionate football fans across the town hoisted their own flags of their choice. A new ‘tradition’ thus evolved and fans in Mokokchung hoist the national flags of their favorite teams every World Cup ever since. By what has now become an entrenched tradition, fans hoist the flags weeks ahead of the World Cup and as the tournament progresses, fans of those teams being eliminated from the competition take down their flags – often under the cover of night.
Normally, the FIFA World Cup is played during the summer in the months of June-July. However, the 2022 edition will be played during the winter in November-December, in Qatar. For the first time in its history, the World Cup will be played in the Middle East. As the countdown to the World Cup 2022 has begun, with less than a hundred days to go, avid football fans in Mokokchung are already hoisting the flags of their favorite teams on their vehicles and homes as seen here. (MTNews photo)
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