The 1973–74 Santosh Trophy was the 30th edition of the

Santosh Trophy The National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy, or simply Santosh Trophy, is an inter-state national football competition contested by the state associations and government institutions under the All India Football Federation (AIFF), th ...

, the main

State State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

competition for

football in India Association football is one of the most popular sports in India. The 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup was the first FIFA event the country hosted. It was called the most successful FIFA U-17 World Cup ever, with a record-breaking attendance of 1,347,133 ...

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

won the Santosh Trophy for the first time beating

Railways Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to roa ...

3–2 with their captain Mani scoring all the three goals. The tournament was held in the Maharaja's College Ground,

Ernakulam Ernakulam () is the central business district of the city of Kochi, Kerala, India. It is the namesake of Ernakulam district. The eastern part of Kochi city is mainly known as Ernakulam, while the western part of it after the Venduruthy Bridge ...

, Kerala. The matches were played under newly installed floodlights. On most of the days, there were two matches, played between 5.45 pm and 9.30 pm. The tournament was inaugurated by the home minister K. Karunakaran. The match-ball for the first day was dropped from a helicopter. Stands that could hold 20,000 – 25,000 spectators were built in the ground Santosh Trophy contest begins
Malabar Herald, 1 December 1973 and it had an overall capacity of around 50,000.Kerala’s legendary Santosh Trophy-winning team to celebrate golden jubilee of maiden title
''

Sportstar ''Sportstar'' is an Indian monthly sports magazine published in India by the publishers of ''The Hindu''. Its headquarters is in Chennai. History and profile ''Sportstar'' was established in 1978. The magazine covers international sports, i ...

'', 7 December 2023

Preliminary knockout matches

''Score 0-0 at full time''

League matches

Pool A

Pool B

Pool C

Pool D

''Kerala goal-keeper Victor Manjila fractured his shoulder and missed the rest of the tournament. His replacement Sethumadhavan got injured one match later. Ravindran kept in the rest of the matches and the final.''

Quarter-finals

Semifinal

Final

Squads

* Kerala : KP Sethumadhavan, Victor Manjila, C Ravindran (goal keepers); John J John, Ratnakaran, Cheeku, MO Jose, Mitran, Usman, Jacob and Prasannan (backs); TA Jaffar (vice-captain), Poulose, Abdul Hameed and Devanand (half-backs); Blassy George, KP Williams, T.K. Subramaniam "Mani" (captain), Najimuddin, Xavier Pius, R.K. Perumal, Titus Kurian, MR Joseph and Basheer (forwards). Reserve : Babu Nair, Mohandas, Ramachandran, Vijayan, Kunhi Mohamed, Gopalakrishnan, Solaman and Majeed. Coach : Simon Sundararaj * Bengal : Goal-keepers : Tarun Bose, Prasanta Mitra (Mohun Bagan) and Gobinda Guha Thakurta (Kalighat) ; Backs : Sudhir Karmakar, Prabir Mazumder (East Bengal) and Kajal Dhali (Mohun Bagan) ; Stoppers : Syed Naeemuddin (Mohun Bagan), Ashok Banerjee, Shyamal Ghosh (East Bengal) and Anwar Hussain (Mohammadan Sporting); Halves : Gautam Sarkar, Samaresh Chowdhury (East Bengal), Mohan Singh (Mohun Bagan) and Tapan Bose (Kidderpore); Forwards : Swapan Sengupta,

Mohammad Habib Mohammad Habib (1895–1971) was an Indian historian, who worked at the Aligarh Muslim University. He was involved in the Indian Independence movement, and was an associate of both Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. He was a candidate in the 1967 ...

, Mohammad Akbar,

Subhash Bhowmick Subhash Bhowmick (2 October 1950 – 22 January 2022) was an Indian football player and manager. During his playing career, he represented the "Big Two" of Kolkata football, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. He also represented India in various int ...

(captain) (East Bengal), Surajit Sengupta (Mohun Bagan), Latifuddin (Mohammadan Sporting), Anu Chowdhury (Rajasthan) and Ranjit Mukherjee (Kidderpore) Habib withdrew with an injury.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santosh Trophy 1973-1974 1973–74 in Indian football Santosh Trophy seasons