West Bengal are crowned the Santosh Trophy champions after a gap of 11 years, thanks to a brace from Chirag United's Denson Devdas. Denson scored his first goal in the injury time of the first half and the second, half an hour later.
If it was the Vijayan-Ancheri partnership that guided Bengal to their last Santosh Trophy national football championship win 11 years back, this time it was another two Kerala players who played major roles in their glory this time - Denson Devdas from Kannur and Dhanarajan Radhakrishnan from Palakkad.
Denson found his first goal from a header of Snehashish Chakrobarty's corner in the first half. He scored the winner for Bengal in the 78th minute; this time it was a long ranger from outside the box. Denson had earlier scored the crucial spot kick in the semi final penalty shootout which took West Bengal into the final of the 64th Santosh Trophy.
Dhanarajan who joined McDowell's Mohun Bagan this season was also a strong presence in the Bengal defense. Dhanarajan had played for Kerala in the last Santosh trophy, while Denson is playing his second tournsment with Bengal and is yet to be heard of by the selectors!
Image not recovered: bengal-vs-panjub-11 Congrats Denson, Dhanarajan and the West Bengal team! This was Bengal's record 30th Santosh Trophy win.
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From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Sunday 8 August 2010, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.