The 64th National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy 2010-11 will be held from May 6 to May 30, 2011 at Assam, the All India Football Federation said on Friday.
The preliminary round matches will be held from May 6 to May 16 with 31 teams grouped into 7 clusters. Last year's semi finalists - champions West Bengal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Goa find their names in the quarter final group directly along with leaders from each clusters.
Former champions Kerala, who had yet another disappointing campaign last season, will have to go through the preliminaries and are clubbed with Jammu Kashmir, Jharkhand and Chandigarh in Cluster IV. Kerala will have their cluster matches played at Kinsukia in Assam. Kerala will open their campaign against Jammu and Kashmir on 6th May and then plays Chandigarh on the 8th May. Their final cluster match will be against Jharkhand on May 10.
In the last two editions of the Santosh Trophy, the Kerala team were knocked out in the pre-quarter final stage. Last year it was Mizoram who nicked a 1-0 win against Kerala and advanced into the quarters. It was West Bengal who lifted the coveted trophy last year. Malayali footballer Denson Devdas scored a brace to help Bengal defeat Punjab in the final.
The quarter final round matches will take place from May 17 to 24. First semi-final will be held on May 26, while the second semi-final will be played on May 27 with grand finale being held on May 30.
Cluster I - Assam, Pondicherry, Rajasthan
Cluster II - Chattisgarh, Daman and Diu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh
Cluster III - Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Cluster IV - Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chandigarh Cluster V - Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Services, Arunachal Pradesh
Cluster VI - Delhi, Nagaland, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh
Cluster VII - Mizoram, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura
Cluster VIII - Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Railways, Sikkim
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Friday 25 March 2011, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.