The Legend Of Mohammed Salim

This is the true story of the first ever Indian to be signed by a European club, that club being Celtic.

Take it with a pinch of salt, after all, it is wikipedia. But still, this really is an amazing story. Maybe some of you have already heard of him. Anyway...


Mohammed Abdul Salim (1904 -1980) was an Indian footballer from Kolkata, then part of the British Raj.

<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>//<![CDATA[if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } //]]></SCRIPT>Career

By the mid-1930s Salim, a winger, was an essential member of Calcutta’s Mohammedan Sporting Club side, and helped them to claim five successive Calcutta League titles.
After the title win of 1936, Salim was invited to play two friendlies against the Chinese Olympic side. A cousin called Hasheem who lived in England, and was then visiting Calcutta, witnessed the first match. Having seen Salim’s exceptional display, Hasheem urged Salim to try his hand at European football.
Hasheem was so persuasive that instead of playing in the second Chinese friendly, Salim sailed with him on the City of Cairo for England. After a few days in London, Hasheem took him to Glasgow and Celtic Park.
Salim was surprised to note that all the Celtic players were professionals. However, when asked whether he would be able to compete with them he nodded in approval. Salim’s confidence encouraged Hasheem to speak to Willie Maley, the Celtic manager.
Hasheem told him: “A great player from India has come by ship. Will you please take a trial of his? But there is a slight problem. Salim plays in bare feet.”
Maley laughed, the idea of a bare-footed * from India competing against Scottish professionals was difficult to believe. But Hasheem was persistent and the Celtic manager agreed to give him a trial. Salim was asked to demonstrate his skill before 1,000 club members and three registered coaches.
Salim’s ability, even in bare feet, astonished them. They decided to play him in a match against Hamilton. Besides being a skilful winger, Salim also became famous for playing the game in bandaged bare feet instead of the customary football boots. On his debut in 1937, Salim helped Celtic win 5-1 against Galston and then another game which Celtic won 7-0 against Hamilton Accies. As both of these games were friendlies, he is not recorded to have played. The press were excited about his skills and called him "The Indian Juggler" with headlines such as "Ten Twinkling Toes of Indian Salim hypnotized the crowd at Parkhead."
However he started to get homesick. But Celtic were determined to keep him in their squad. In order to persuade him to stay, they organised a charity match and promised him 5% of the total proceed. But Salim refused and asked the money (£1,800; not a small sum at that time) to be donated to orphans. In the end, Celtic couldn't persuade him to stay back and he went back to the Indian sub continent to play for the Mohammedan Sporting Club.

The following is an excerpt from an article in the Glasgow Observer of 5 September 1936 and describes what is said to be Salim's debut in a Celtic strip, a 7-1 win over Galston. This part article appeared in the Celtic View some time around the late 1980s. "Abdul Salim, Celtic's Indian International trialist, tickled the crowd at Celtic Park on Friday with his magnificent ball manipulation. In his bare feet he was a conspicuous figure but this was further emphasised by his dark skin against the white and green of the Celtic strip. His play was top class. Every ball he touched went exactly to the place he wanted it to. Not one inch was it out. His crosses into goal were simply shrieking to be nodded into the net. I wouldn't like to have calculated the score had McGrory been playing..... Dawson missed a penalty kick which Salim, despite the invitation of Alex Miller, refused to take."

Legacy

When Salim fell ill due to old age, his son Rashid Salim wrote a letter to Celtic about the illness and stated that he needed money for his father's recovery. He admitted that he only wrote the letter to see if Celtic still remembered his father and not for any material gains. To his astonishment, the reply came with all sorts of reassuring help and also a cheque of £2000.


I copied this from wikipedia, I think there are some sources at the bottom of the page which have more information about him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Salim_(footballer)


<!-- logo -->
<!-- /logo --><!-- navigation -->

 

yeah seen this before. we signed an egyptian guy too who beleive it or not wore bandages on his feet!! seriously

 

its true

 

Wow! i've heard of him but didn't know all that. amazing!!

 

true mate

 

amazing good learning new stuff about celtic.

 

Cracking story Connor, never knew anything about this, Good on Celtic it makes me proud to be a Celtic supporter.

 

Yeah I read about him years ago, very interesting. An amazing era.

 

I just read about him a moment ago when looking at the Celtic Wiki Stats page. (There are two threads so just quoted the other to join them.)

His anniversary was yesterday R.I.P Mohammed Salim (1904 - November 5th 1980).

It's a great read @Conor1994 posted for anyone who doesn't know of him yet, thought the the story of Indians taking up football was incredible. We do like our Rebs.

 

Great read.

Thanks for posting Conor.