The original idea of the Barbarians was set up by Rich Paces, Jim Hulme, Richard Willmore and myself, all of who worked for Reliance Industries Petroleum Business (E & P) who set everything up, but we regard Carlos Aquilera, Diego Aquilera, Luis Salazar and Jan Eberhardt as founder members as they were all there virtually from the start.

The first match was played in March 2003 and the idea was to play football on a Sunday to keep ourselves slightly fitter than was the case prior to setting up the Barbarians. We have no rules as to who can and can not play, and wanted to play with whoever was interested in playing.  We have had people from as young as 12 to over 60 playing regularly and both men and women. We are of varying degrees of usefulness at playing the game, but this is not important, what was important was to enjoy ourselves. It was only when we play against other teams that anyone counted the score, as winning is not so important as playing to the Barbarians. We are a truly multinational team and once played a game against a French Team from Mumbai with all eleven people on the pitch playing for the Bombay Barbarians coming from eleven different countries. Countries who have had players playing for the Bombay Barbarians include - Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, United States of America, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Israel, Egypt, South Africa, Iran, Libya, Afghanistan, India, South Korea and Australia. We try to play the people who attend the Sunday games in the actual football matches against other teams, rather than the best players and one from Ray McAllister, Luis Salazar or Jan Eberhardt is the team captain for matches against other teams.

We started off playing at the Cooperage in South Mumbai, where due to a contact between the club and Reliance Industries Limited we were able to play on a Sunday free of charge. The ground was too large for our small number of original team members and we normally played across the ground rather than using the full size pitch. After the first monsoon season we moved the playing ground to the American School at Bandra Kurla Complex as most of the players lived in that area and the pitch was smaller and more suitable for the number of players we had playing. Luis Salazar organized our permission to play on the pitch on Sunday evening, as some of our players children, including his daughter, attended the American School as students. Approximately half of the team is made up of people associated with the oilfield and the other half from people from other walks of life. We have had a steady turn over of people playing for the team, mainly due to the short term contracts people are on when in Mumbai, but have a core of about ten people who play come rain or shine including Jim Hulme, Jan Eberhardt, Carlos Aquilera, Diego Aquilera, Ray McAllister, Henry Leigh, Luis Salazar, Charles Phelps-Penry and myself. We have had many other players who also always played when in Mumbai but they have since left Mumbai, but are always welcome to join in the Sunday games when back visiting. We play throughout the year on Sundays, including the monsoon period, and play mainly in the evening when the temperature is cooler, although during the monsoon period we play in the morning.

The name Bombay Barbarians came up during a regular Friday night at the Renaissance 'A' Bar. We were looking for a suitable name and after many failed attempts Tony Beckett, who's son Stephen played for us whilst in Mumbai, came up with the name. All those at the bar thought it to be a good name but we put it to the rest of the normal players who were not present that night, all of who agreed to adopt the name for the team.

I then designed a team logo for the newly named Bombay Barbarians, which was subsequently improved by Luis Salazar to the one we have today. Team shirts were organized by Luis Salazar and Jan Eberhardt and sponsored by BJ Services and Schlumberger, two worldwide oilfield supply companies with offices in Mumbai. The team kit is red shirts with a black collar, black shorts and red & black socks. The shirts have our team logo on the front, name and number on the back and sponsors logo's on the sleeves. They make the Bombay Barbarians look like a professional football team even if when we play we are not quite so professional.

We originally only played amongst ourselves but soon got involved with games with other like minded people who played football at the weekends. We played a number of games against the French Team in South Mumbai, Bayer at their fantastic pitch at Thane (with great support from Major Sudan and his team!), The American School, American School Teachers and Chemborites all at the Bayer pitch at Thane.

  Major S. Sudan and R. Ghate  

Results have been mixed but we did manage to win the only real competition we have played in. Bayer kindly sponsored a competition between Bayer, American School and Bombay Barbarians of which we won the final on penalties against the American School. Ray our team captain for the day and all the players were presented with a Bayer watch as a token for winning.

If anyone who is reading this would like to play football with us on a Sunday please feel free to contact anyone of us at info@bombaybarbarians.com. We are a friendly bunch of guys and welcome anyone, of any ability, to play with us.

By Jem Babbington