Two friends turned Kashmir's worst flood into a football revolution

When the Jhelum River swallowed Kashmir in September 2014, it didn't just destroy homes. It erased routines, closed schools, and left young people with nothing but time and despair. More than 2,550 villages disappeared underwater. Hundreds died. When the water finally receded, the quieter crisis began: a generation with no structure, no purpose, no reason to believe things could get better.

Shamim Meraj, editor of The Kashmir Monitor, walked through neighbourhoods still coated in silt. His friend Sandeep Chattoo, an engineer who ran a small hotel, walked beside him. They noticed boys drifting through the lanes—the same ones who'd been throwing stones now had nowhere to channel their energy.

Shamim had been a footballer once. He knew what the sport meant to the Valley. He knew what it could heal.

They bought 100 footballs and distributed them in the locality. A week later, those same boys were kicking them.

From rubble to the pitch

The idea grew from there: Why not create a professional football club that showed the world the real Kashmir? Not the one in headlines. The one that beats with rhythm and passion.

But building a football club in a conflict zone wasn't romantic. It was brutal. There were curfews. Shutdowns. Checkpoints. Internet blockades. Players who worked as mechanics or shopkeepers couldn't quit their jobs. Families were unsure. The world wasn't watching.

Funding came from mortgaging Shamim's wife's jewellery. Friends pitched in what they could. "My wife is a psychiatrist. She and my daughter fully supported me. It was a beg-borrow-steal situation," Shamim recalls. But the players never felt the strain. "They never let us know the financial issues," says Danish Farooq, a young midfielder who'd been working in a bank. "We always felt like a top club. Shamim bhai treated us like family."

In March 2016, Real Kashmir FC—The Snow Leopards—was born.

Four months later, they were thrown into the 128th Durand Cup, one of India's most prestigious tournaments. The team was raw, mostly semi-professional, completely unprepared. They finished last. But they'd taken their first national step.

What they needed was someone who understood world football. Someone who could turn Kashmiri grit into a structured force.

Shamim emailed David Robertson, a former defender for Rangers FC and Leeds United, a seasoned Scottish coach with decades of top-flight experience. He never expected a reply. Why would an international coach come to a conflict zone?

David said yes. He landed in Srinagar in peak winter—no internet, no electricity, biting cold. Within hours, he asked for a return ticket. Then he met the boys. He saw their hunger. He stayed.

The unbeaten season

In the 2017–2018 I-League Second Division, Real Kashmir didn't lose a single match. Foreign players like Loveday Enyinnaya fortified the squad. Local stars—Danish, Ritwik Das, Hammad—became the heartbeat.

On May 30, 2018, Real Kashmir became the first club from the Valley ever to be promoted to the I-League. No government aid. No modern stadium. Players crossed checkpoints to reach training. Sometimes they practised in neighbourhood parks with no goalposts. Still, they made history.

Their first I-League match? They defeated the defending champions, Minerva Punjab. Adidas came on board as kit partners—a first for any Kashmiri club. The BBC filmed two documentaries. The team played in Scotland and Germany.

Danish remembers one moment clearly: "Once, before a match, thousands of people were standing outside the stadium. I thought it was a protest. But no, they were waiting to cheer for us."

In a place known more for unrest than applause, this mattered.

What a club can be

Real Kashmir FC became something larger than football. It became a bridge between conflict and childhood, between stereotypes and reality. For every career the conflict had cut short, for legends like Abdul Majeed Kakroo—the first Kashmiri to captain India, whose career ended at 25—this club was an answer.

Around 2019–2020, Arshad Shawl, a sports marketing veteran, joined the leadership. He strengthened the foundation, focused on youth development, professional management, and corporate partnerships. "This club was born out of emotion," he says. "But emotion alone cannot sustain a dream. Someone must build the systems that allow a dream to grow."

In 2023, co-founder Sandeep Chattoo died of a heart attack—a loss still felt deeply. But the legacy he and Shamim built was strong enough to endure.

Today, the Snow Leopards have a senior team, a reserve squad, U-18, U-15, and U-13 teams, and training programs for children as young as 5. A full pipeline of dreams.

Their story has been retold on screen, not as a commercial pitch, but as a testament to what ordinary people can do when they look at destruction and say: let's build something. It is the story of boys who carried footballs across checkpoints and curfews just to train. It is a valley rediscovering joy. And perhaps the most important win of all.