Fan fury forces abandonment

KOLKATA: Unruly behavior of fans forced Monday evening's CFL Premier Division A match between Mohun Bagan and Tollygunge Agragami at the former's ground to be abandoned with just over a minute of added-on time left to be played.
With the match locked 1-1, trouble erupted after Mohun Bagan winger Azaharuddin Mallick's 'goal' was disallowed. Furious Mohun Bagan players charged at referee Dipu Roy and protested assistant referee Ujjal Haldar's decision to flag the goal as offside.
The players' dissatisfaction permeated the packed galleries and the supporters soon started throwing bottles and other missiles to the pitch, forcing the game to be halted. Dozens crossed the fencing and ran on to the ground.
The police force and Mohun Bagan officials tried their best to calm down the fans for over an hour but failed to bring the situation under control. Match commissioner Udayan Haldar finally announced the match had been abandoned.
Mohun Bagan, having already dropped two points, needed a win to stay in touch with leaders East Bengal. They had as many as three 'goals' disallowed on Friday, with Daniel Bidemi (first half) and Prabir Das (60th minute) being the other two players whose 'strikes' were ruled offside.
While Bidemi did appear to be offside when he ruffled the netting in the eighth minute, the linesman's decisions to pull up Prabir and Azaharuddin were highly debatable. Prabir looked on-side, but it was touch-and-go in Azaharuddin's case. Although another Mohun Bagan player (Haroon Amiri) was clearly offside during that last move, he was not interfering play.
The television replays could not conclusively determine whether Azharuddin was offside.
Mohun Bagan started with an attacking mindset with Shankarlal Chakraborty pairing Darryl Duffy and Daniel Bidemi up front. After the latter had a goal ruled out, Mohun Bagan took the lead in the 21st minute when Prabir latched on to a through ball from Pankaj Moula and saw his attempted cross sneak in through the first post as Tollygunge goalkeeper Jhantu Mondal moved the other way.
Tollygunge were lucky not to be reduced to 10 men towards the end of the first session when Kareem Nurain got away with only a booking despite head-butting Duffy.
Tollygunge changed their game plan in the second session with coach Ranjan Chowdhury taking off defender Kareem and bringing on a second foreign striker in Joel Sunday to join Alfred Jaryan. Tollygunge looked sharper, but it was Prabir who found the back of the net again, which was cancelled.
Alfred then levelled scores in the 85th minute with a left-footed drive from top of the box. Mohun Bagan raided the Tollygunge citadel in search for the winner, and thought they had it too, only for assistant referee Haldar to disappoint them. And then, all hell broke loose.