As the snow falls in Srinagar, Real Kashmir prepares for the first match of Ligue 1 in J & K

Sunday . They face the Churchill brothers on Tuesday. (Photo: Mihir Vasavda)

"[ Mumbai is fashionable in Kashmir is at mausam … kab bigdega kisiko pata nahin (Mumbai fashion and weather in Kashmir … no one can say when they will change), says Gulzar Ahmed with equal fear and cynicism.

At age 50, Ahmed sits behind the goal post of TRC Turf Ground, hands tucked into the pheran, a beedi between the lips. He has never missed a football match in any place in Srinagar, he said. And now, he is looking forward to Tuesday, when Real Kashmir debuting at home will face former Churchill Brothers champions in the first match of the League against Jammu and Kashmir.

"It has not snowed here in November as long as I can remember. But just before such an important match, the weather was bad. Inshallah, the sun will be there and we can have a good fight, "he says.

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It is almost fatal that a club born of the fury of nature is put to the test of the elements on the eve of its biggest match. Real Kashmir is a club steeped in symbolism. Its owner, Shamim Mehraj, is a Muslim and his partner, Sandeep Chattoo, a Kashmiri Pandit, joins forces to give a community torn apart by conflict after the devastating floods of 2014.

The Real Kashmir team with coach David Robertson during a training match in New Delhi this weekend. (Source: Photo Express by Abhinav Saha / File)

Team Scottish coach David Robertson rejected offers from China and other countries to lead this group of Division Two rookies in just two years. And at each stage, they had to overcome multiple obstacles. Last month, the final of an invitational tournament between Real Kashmir and Minerva on this ground had to be canceled due to curfew in effect in the city.

Sunday, time stopped Srinagar. But looking at the snow that provides a dramatic backdrop to this historic occasion, Mehraj says, "We have seen much worse than that." Chattoo intervenes: "We will overcome that too."

At the stadium, the subsequent snowfall and power outage put a lot of last-minute work on hold, including the construction of a television tower to broadcast live footage of the match. "We will have to create a temporary structure, there is no other way out," says Majid Yousuf, a member of J & K.'s football board.

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Adjacent to the tourist reception center (CRT) and located in one From the busiest streets of Dalgate Bridge, the ground does not offer many facilities, aside from the newly built cottage-style locker rooms. It was actually a cricket ground until 2014, when the then chief minister, Omar Abdullah, sanctioned an off-road terrain, particularly suited to football.

But what is missing in the size of the stadium, it catches up with breathtaking. the surroundings – the chinar on one side offering a perfect contrast with the snow-capped mountains on the other. Fortunately for fans like Ahmed, Tuesday's predictions predict a cold but sunny day. But as Ahmed says, " Mausam kab bigdega kisiko pata nahin ."

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