New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS): Bengaluru has been added as a host city for the Subroto Cup Football Tournament, in addition to Delhi and Gurugram, taking the oldest national inter-school football tournament to the South of India for the first time.

The 62nd edition of the prestigious football tournament for school children will be held from September 19 to October 23.

This will be the first time, the tournament will be played outside the national capital region (NCR). While the U-17 Junior Boys and Girls tournaments will be held in Delhi/NCR, the U-14 Sub-Junior Boys competition will be hosted in Bengaluru.

An official announcement to this effect was made at a press event at the Akash Officer’s Mess here in the national capital, in the presence of Air Marshal R.K Anand VSM, Air Officer-in-Charge Administration & Vice Chairman, Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society (SMSES), who graced the occasion as Chief Guest.

A total of 109 teams from 27 States and Union Territories (UTs) will be participating across the three categories. Teams from Bangladesh and Nepal will bring in foreign flavour to the tournament. A total of over 180 football matches are scheduled to be played.

Besides the hallowed Ambedkar Stadium, the Tejas Football Ground (Delhi), the Subroto Football Ground (Delhi) and the G.D. Goenka School (Gurugram) grounds will be the venues in the Delhi/NCR region. In Bengaluru, the matches will be played at the ASC Centre, the Air Force School, Jalahalli and the Air Force School, Yehalanka.

While the Pilgrim Higher Secondary School in Dimapur, Nagaland are the defending champions of the Junior Boys tournament, the 61st Junior Girls edition was won by St. Patrick’s School from Gumla, Jharkhand.

The Sub Junior Boys tournament, on the other hand, was won by Heirok Higher Secondary School from Imphal, Manipur, in the previous edition.

The Subroto Cup, hosted by the Indian Air Force (IAF) under the aegis of the SMSES, was first held in 1960 and was named after Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee, who conceived the idea in order to promote sports at the grassroots level.

Schedule:

Junior Girls (U-17): Sep 19 to Sep 26

Sub-Junior Boys (U-14): Oct 2 - Oct 10

Junior Boys (U-17): Oct 14- Oct 23