Mohammed Salim (footballer)

Mohammed Salim

Salim (right) having his feet bandaged, due to playing in bare feet, by Jimmy McMenemy the Celtic trainer, 1936.
Personal information
Full name	Mohammed Salim
Date of birth	1904
Place of birth	Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Date of death	5 November 1980(1980-11-05) (aged 75–76)
Place of death	Calcutta, West Bengal, India
Playing position	Winger
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1926	Chittaranjan Football Club
1926–1927	Mohammedan Sporting Club
1927–1931	Sporting Union
1932	East Bengal Club
1933–1934	Aryans Club
1934–1936	Mohammedan Sporting Club
1936	Celtic	2	(0)
1936–1938	Mohammedan Sporting Club
National team
1936	All India XI	1	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Mohammed Salim (Bengali: মহম্মদ সালিম,  Audio , 1904 – 5 November 1980) was an Indian footballer from Calcutta (now Kolkata, West Bengal), which at the time was part of the British Raj. Salim was best known for his role in the fabled 1930s Mohammedan SC team which claimed five successive Calcutta Football League titles. He also became the first player from the Indian sub-continent to play for a European club, Celtic FC.

Salim was a chemist and a pharmacist from BD born in Metiaburuz, a lower-middle-class locality in Calcutta in 1904. Uninterested in formal academic training, he displayed great footballing skill from childhood. Mohun Bagan's IFA Shield triumph in 1911 also contributed to drawing the young Salim to football.

Indian nationalists were fighting for independence from British colonial rule during the 1920s and 1930s. Many Indians took to football to answer British jibes that Indians were incapable of home rule. They played in bare feet and managed to defeat British teams wearing boots which was seen as evidence that Indians were in no way inferior. Salim did not find it difficult to join the Chittaranjan Club of Bowbazar, Central Calcutta. Managed by a group of educated Bengali middle-class patrons, they instilled in Salim the fervent desire to beat the European in his game. Salim then had a short stint in the B team of Mohammedan Sporting Club. Struck by Salim's exceptional talent, Pankaj Gupta, Bengal's legendary sports administrator, recruited Salim to play for his club Sporting Union. He went on to spend a season with East Bengal Club before moving to the Aryans Club under the auspices of Choney Majumdar, a leading sportsman of contemporary Bengal.