The 1956–57 Santosh Trophy was the 13th edition of the Santosh Trophy, the main State competition for football in India. It was held in 1956 in Trivandrum, Kerala. Hyderabad beat Bombay 4–1 in the replayed final. The tournament had 70 minute matches.
Quarterfinal
Bengal led 8–0 at half time. This was a record for the tournament since bettered by Bengal's 18–0 in 1974-75. Two hat-tricks were scored in the tournament before this match, by Arogyasamy of Services and Damodaran of Mysore.
Semifinal
This is Bombay's first win over Bengal. Bengal rested several players including captain Mewalal. A long pass by W. D'Souza bounced off Guha and Grostate scored off the rebound.
Third place match
Mysore missed a penalty in the sixth minute. These two teams played the final in the previous year.
Final
The own goal was when Balaram's shot was deflected into the goal. Zulfikar, Moin and Balaram provided the assists for the other three goals. Hyderabad led 4-0 at half time. Near the end of the match, Neville D'Souza's shot was helped into the net by Hussain's attempt to block.
Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the Rajpramukh of Travancore–Cochin, presented the trophies. The 30 member provisional squad for the Melbourne Olympics was announced at the end of the final.
Hyderabad : Ramaswamy; Aziz, Ahmad Hussain and Latif; Yousuf Khan, Noor Mohammed; Moin, Balaram, Kannan, Zulfikar and Yusuf Bombay : Narayan; Bhaskaran, Poonawala and David Solomon; F. D'Souza and G. Fernandez; Joe D'sa, Neville D'Souza, Linky Grostate, Nagraj and Pavithran
Squads Mysore : Nandan; Dhan Singh and Muthu; Jayaram, Narasimhaiah and Pooswamy; John, Mari, Damodaran, Barackulla and Sreenivas Bengal : Sett; Abdul Rahman and James Fenn; P. Mitra, Sarbadhikary and Nandy; P. K. Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Mewalal, Kittu and Kanniyan. Also Chatterjee (goal-keeper), S Guha, Kempaiah, Salam, S. Banerjee, Pal
References