Name of the sportsperson:   Pradip Kumar Banarjee
Discipline: International Footballer. Right Wing Position
State: Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, India
Date of Birth:  Oct 15, 1936

Achievements:

- He was one of the first Arjun awardee, when the awards were instituted in 1961

- Padma Shri in 1990

- Named Indian Footballer of the 20th Century by FIFA.

Was part of Indian team for 13 years.

Was top scorer in Asia at a point of time.

Profile:

Pradip Kumar Banerjee was born on 23 June 1936 in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal. He studied in Jalpaiguri Zilla School and completed his schooling from H.P.M. School in Jamshedpur. He was barely 15 when he played as right-winger for Bihar in the Santosh Trophy.

In 1954 he moved on to Kolkata and joined the Mohun Bagan Club in West Bengal later moving on to represent Eastern Railway Soccer Club. He represented India in three Asian Games namely, the 1958 Asian Games in Tokyo, the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta where India clinched the gold medal in football and then the 1966 Asian Games in Bangkok. He became an Olympian at the age of 20, when he was part of the national team that played at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. He was the captain of the Indian Football Team at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, where he scored the famous equaliser against France to hold a 1-1 draw. He represented India thrice at the Merdeka Cup in Kuala Lumpur  Recurring injuries forced him to drop out of the national team leading to his retirement in 1967.

After his retirement, his first stint at coaching came with the East Bengal Football Club, one of the clubs best times from 1970-75, when they won the Calcutta League six consecutive times. He went on to coach the Indian Football Team from 1972 to 1986. He joined the Tata Football Academy at Jamshedpur as its Technical Director from 1991 to 1997. PK was awarded the player of the millennium in 2005 by FIFA. He had also won the International Fair Play Award from the Olympic Committee, a feat that is yet to be repeated by any Indian footballer.