It's evening and I find myself inside the New Hussaini Café on Darul Shifa Main Road. You have to pronounce it kaif, not cafe, mind you — in true blue Hyderabadi style.

I look around to see coversations happening over Irani chai, biscuits shaped like bow ties and onion samosas. The only thing that eclipses the buzz of the adda is the omnipresence of the Beautiful Game: football. Hussaini's in a way is a time capsule of Hyderabad's craze for the sport, the survival of which is in question now.

Hussaini Cafe is located on Darul Shifa Main Road in Hyderabad. ~Photo: Nikhila Henry/The Hindu

As I shift my eyes from corner to corner, I see goalscoring moments and the tension of penalties, frozen and framed on the pale yellow walls. Between two rows of dark wooden benches lined up inside the eatery, I spot the picture of Dhyan Chand awardee Shabbir Ali hanging majestically. The man from Darul Shifa was rated the best striker in the country in the 70s and 80s.

But back in the good ol' days, Ali wasn't the only one from the Old City who had chased the magic ball and the dreams that came attached. An entire generation of boys with star-filled eyes followed suit, letting only football course through their veins. This is the same adrenaline that still gives a kick to the 60 or 70 boys who throng the ground opposite Hussaini's.

For Ali, his training ground was at Abbas Football Club that came into being in 1938 in Darul Shifa. For him and his contemporaries from the Old City, it was a rage then. And it still is now (for reasons best known to them). Countless afternoons have been spent sipping tea, flavoured with opinions on Pele, Maradona, Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar. Outside, the game goes on, on the sprawling ground watched over by a mosque, an Ashurkhana and a public residential school for the blind.

As I squeeze myself into their football adda, I find myself opening a floodgate of past glories and new hopes, of the times spent with my father — a football freak — cheering every night as world cup matches were telecast on our black and white TV set. I kept the cheering alive long after he was gone, for the Beautiful Game was as much a head rush for me as it was for those who thronged Hussaini's every single day.

Some way through the adda session accompanied by tea and samosas, an enthusiastic man clad in black (on account of Muharram) juts in with his memories of Shabbir Ali — Ali Bhai, or sometimes Shabbir Bhai to those who know him well. Arif Mohammed, hefty and six-feet tall, is full of praise for the maestro, who scored 35 goals while wearing the national colours. “Ali bhai revived Abbas club. He lived right opposite the ground and he was there every morning to play," he says.

The conversation now shifts from common love to personal favourites. The name of Syed Hussain Abedi, the current head of Abbas FC pops up. “You don’t know what it is to feel the rush. You can’t keep football away from old city, Towlichowki and Bolaram in Hyderabad,” Abedi says. He seems to have kept his confidence intact down the years. “I can still hear the roar of the sweating, teeming crowd,” he says as he sips his Irani chai.

Reality though seems to level all that. Recession has certainly caught up with Hyderabad’s clubs as it has with its iconic counterparts across the nation: FC Cochin is now just nostalgia, Calcutta’s Mohun Bagan and Sporting Mohammedan are playing survival of the fittest. Abedi’s hopes remain alive, with the city’s former players, now coaches across the country, lightening their own wallets and giving back to the society that fed sport into them. Their only wish is that the State and Central governments chip in someday to help their cause.

As for Shabbir Ali, whose picture hangs on the cafe wall, the love of football is all he had since the age of 10. “I started playing young and led India internationally later. There is no honour like that,” says Ali, who shuttles between Calcutta and Hyderabad to coach youngsters. The striker in him reawakens as he speaks of his football pals. Naeem, Moin, Abid… all of whom migrated to Bombay in search of better pastures.

Hussaini's in a way is a time capsule of Hyderabad's craze for football. ~Photo: Nikhila Henry/The Hindu

As the evening grows darker, three boys, probably 10 to 12 years old, continue playing on the ground. A girl runs around with them. “It is the month of mourning and no professional player plays during this time,” Mr. Abedi explains.

But is the city slowly witnessing a fade-out of the love for the Beautiful Game? I can’t help but bring Pele’s words to my mind:

Too many players think of football as something to kick. They should be taught to caress it and treat it like a precious gem.

And caressing it, they are. It’s not just a lone battle Abbas FC is fighting. There are the striving Sastri’s FC and Bolarum Sporting for company. The group at Hussaini’s is certain that its city, home to a Race Course, a Golfing Club, a Boat Club and a Badminton Club will not let football slip away that easily. Perhaps it’s not the end; perhaps it’s the beginning. The Azan echoes in the air. It is dusk now. But the adda is far from empty.

The Hyderabadi football lover still finds solace in recollecting precious moments of the game: that goal that is slotted in with surgical precision, the perfect corner kick, Zidane’s head butt on Materazzi and Luis Suarez’s urge to bite his opponent. This is a city that loves the flexes of international players adorning the sides of its roads, just as much as it loves its biryani or Irani chai.

When he hung up his boots in 1987, Shabbir Ali still had hopes that the city would make a mark in Indian football. His dream is still alive.

The hardcore Brazilian would be gutted when the team makes an exit from the World Cup; but he would still end up making a silent promise: “There’s Copa America, we’ll take you then”. Right now, the group at Hussaini’s seem to mirror that very feeling. “We’ll get it all back,” Mr. Ali says.