In what started off just as an idea by two passionate football fans, Chennaiyin FC Fans — Supermachans, the official fan group of the ISL team Chennaiyin FC, now boasts a member count of approximately over 500. Apart from creating a terrific atmosphere in the stadium during the match days, the group has grown leaps and bounds and has been undertaking several social initiatives — right from taking part in coastal cleanup to organising free football session for the kids.
In a chat with us, Supermachans speak about their growth, their relationship with the club’s management and on how they wish to prove that Chennai is not just a cricket-loving state.
“Chennaiyin FC Fans — Supermachans was primarily started by two football fans — Josh Peters and Naga Chaitanya — who didn’t know each other previously. They met sometime around the first edition of the ISL. Soon, several others who had passion for football, joined them. At the end of the season, there were around 20 people in the group and that’s when Chennaiyin FC noticed and got in touch with us,” Jenisha Rani, a team member, starts the conversation.
She adds, “After that, a bunch of people from our group assisted Chennaiyin FC in their grassroots program — our people volunteered, helped the management, coaches and staff. From then, there’s no turning back — the relationship between our group and the club started growing stronger and we kept expanding.”
On the other hand, when we ask Josh Peters if he expected the group to grow so big, he replies, “Of course we did. We wanted to make sure that it (the group) didn’t end just like that. So we formed a Whatsapp group and we united all football fans in the city. Later, we were able to get in touch with the management itself and they were helping us and we were also helping them.”
Jenisha, who joined Supermachans after the first season, states that one gesture by them really floored Chennaiyin FC’s players — “At the start of the second season, around 300 of us got together and waited at 3.30 am in the morning when the players reached the city — no one expected that and the players were so surprised and were happy. We were not the champions then, but we wanted to show that Chennai loves ‘the beautiful game’.”
On how the group has evolved over the years, she states, “Through the course of the second season, our support kept increasing and we were there at the stadium with banners, even during the December 2015 floods. In the third season, we wanted to go to the next step — before the league, we did a flash mob to spread awareness about it at The Grand Mall. Once the season started, we released a fan anthem for the club — it’s the only anthem which Chennaiyin FC has till date.”
Speaking about the social initiatives they’ve carried out till date, Jenisha says, “So far, we’ve undertaken three main initiatives. We organised a tree planting initiative at Dazzling Stone Home for Children at Kundrathur — previously, the place had a lot of trees, but most of them were gone due to the Vardah cyclone. We also held an origami session for kids there. Apart from that, we joined hands with Chennai Trekking Club and participated in the eighth year edition of Chennai Coastal Cleanup, a major annual environmental awareness event. We also conducted a free football freestyle session by Guinness Record winner Rahul Raja for 40 kids from Pallavaram — they were very happy.”
On a concluding note, both the group members reveal the plans for the near future. “For now, our total focus is on The Champions Cup, which India is hosting. This will be very big for us because this will be the first time that the Indian national team would be playing in Chennai after a long gap. Further, for the forthcoming ISL season, we will be trying to garner as much social media attention as possible and take it from there on.”
