Thenmadom Mathew Varghese (1920 – 10 January 1979) was an Indian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a defender and was also known as Thiruvalla Pappan and Tata Pappan. He began his football career at the age of 16 by playing for ''

Thiruvalla Thiruvalla, alternately spelled Tiruvalla, is a town in Kerala and the Headquarters of the Taluk of the same name located in Pathanamthitta district in the State of Kerala, India. The town is spread over an area of . It lies on the banks of ...

'' ''Town Club.'' He was inducted into

Travancore The Kingdom of Travancore ( /ˈtrævənkɔːr/), also known as the Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor, was an Indian kingdom from c. 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. A ...

State Police team by the first

Inspector-general of police An Inspector General of Police is a senior police officer in the police force or police service of several nations. The rank usually refers to the head of a large regional command within a police service, and in many countries refers to the most se ...

Khan Bahadur Sayid Abdul Karim Sahib Suhrawady. Then he was handpicked into Tata Sports Club, Mumbai. He had represented Tata SC for

Santosh Trophy The Santosh Trophy, officially known as Hero Senior Men's National Football Championship due to sponsorship ties with Hero MotoCorp, is a state football leagues in India, state-level association football, football competition contested by the L ...

tournaments. From there he found his way to the

India national football team The India national football team represents India in international football and is governed by the All India Football Federation (AIFF). The team is affiliated to FIFA and Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Indian team, which was once ...

. T. Varghese represented

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

at the 1948 Summer Olympics and was considered one of the best defenders for India during the 1940s and 1950s. He is the first

Malayali The Malayali people () (also spelt Malayalee and also known by the demonym Keralite) are a Dravidian ethnolinguistic group originating from the present-day state of Kerala in India, occupying its southwestern Malabar coast. They are predomina ...

to participate in a team event in

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...

(

1948 Olympics 1948 Olympics may refer to: *The 1948 Winter Olympics, which were held in St. Moritz, Switzerland *The 1948 Summer Olympics The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympiad and also known as London 1948) were an internation ...

) and also the second

to ever participate in Olympics. He was part of the Indian football team which won gold medal in

Asian Games The Asian Games, also known as Asiad, is a continental multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from all over Asia. The Games were regulated by the Asian Games Federation (AGF) from the first Games in New Delhi, India, until th ...

1951. After retiring from field he was associated with Tata Football Academy in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the '' de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the sec ...

for some period as a trainer. He died in 1979 while at

. He was married to Saramma and the family had four children including three daughters namely Lilian, Shanta Alex and Ann and a son named Mathew Varghese, who also died.

Honours

India *

Gold medal:

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Varghese, Thenmaddom 1920 births 1979 deaths People from Thiruvalla Indian footballers Association football defenders Footballers from Kerala India international footballers Olympic footballers of India Footballers at the 1948 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 1951 Asian Games Footballers at the 1954 Asian Games Medalists at the 1951 Asian Games Asian Games gold medalists for India Asian Games medalists in football Mumbai Football League players

Honours

See also

References

External links