# 1973–74 Santosh Trophy

The 1973–74 Santosh Trophy was the 30th edition of the Santosh Trophy, the main State competition for football in India. Kerala won the Santosh Trophy for the first time beating Railways 3–2 with their captain Mani scoring all the three goals.
The tournament was held in the Maharaja's College Ground, Ernakulam, Kerala. The matches were played under newly installed floodlights. On most of the days, there were two matches, played between 5.45 pm and 9.30 pm. The tournament was inaugurated by the home minister K. Karunakaran. The match-ball for the first day was dropped from a helicopter. Stands that could hold 20,000 – 25,000 spectators were built in the ground and it had an overall capacity of around 50,000.

## Preliminary knockout matches

Score 0-0 at full time

## League matches
### Pool A

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Bengal | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 2 | +9 | 5 | Advance to Quarter-finals |
| 2 | Punjab | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 3 | +1 | 4 | Advance to Quarter-finals |
| 3 | Rajasthan | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 6 | −3 | 2 | |
| 4 | Assam | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 9 | −7 | 1 | |

### Pool B

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Maharashtra | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 1 | +7 | 5 | Advance to Quarter-finals |
| 2 | Andhra Pradesh | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 3 | +8 | 4 | Advance to Quarter-finals |
| 3 | Tamil Nadu | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | +3 | 3 | |
| 4 | Gujarat | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 20 | −18 | 0 | |

### Pool C

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Railways | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 3 | +2 | 5 | Advance to Quarter-finals |
| 2 | Services | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | Advance to Quarter-finals |
| 3 | Goa | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | |
| 4 | Bihar | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | −2 | 1 | |

### Pool D

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Kerala | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 5 | +3 | 5 | Advance to Quarter-finals |
| 2 | Karnataka | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 4 | +7 | 4 | Advance to Quarter-finals |
| 3 | Delhi | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | −1 | 2 | |
| 4 | Manipur | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 10 | −9 | 1 | |
Kerala goal-keeper Victor Manjila fractured his shoulder and missed the rest of the tournament. Ravindran kept in the final.

## Squads

* Kerala : KP Sethumadhavan, Victor Manjila, C Ravindran (goal keepers); John J John, Ratnakaran, Cheeku, MO Jose, Mitran, Usman, Jacob and Prasannan (backs); TA Jaffar (vice-captain), Poulose, Abdul Hameed and Devanand (half-backs); Blassy George, KP Williams, T.K. Subramaniam "Mani" (captain), Najimuddin, Xavier Pius, R.K. Perumal, Titus Kurian, MR Joseph and Basheer (forwards). Reserve : Babu Nair, Mohandas, Ramachandran, Vijayan, Kunhi Mohamed, Gopalakrishnan, Solaman and Majeed. Coach : Simon Sundararaj
* Bengal : Goal-keepers : Tarun Bose, Prasanta Mitra (Mohun Bagan) and Gobinda Guha Thakurta (Kalighat) ; Backs : Sudhir Karmakar, Prabir Mazumder (East Bengal) and Kajal Dhali (Mohun Bagan) ; Stoppers : Syed Naeemuddin (Mohun Bagan), Ashok Banerjee, Shyamal Ghosh (East Bengal) and Anwar Hussain (Mohammadan Sporting); Halves : Gautam Sarkar, Samaresh Chowdhury (East Bengal), Mohan Singh (Mohun Bagan) and Tapan Bose (Kidderpore); Forwards : Swapan Sengupta, Mohammad Habib, Mohammad Akbar, Subhash Bhowmick (captain) (East Bengal), Surajit Sengupta (Mohun Bagan), Latifuddin (Mohammadan Sporting), Anu Chowdhury (Rajasthan) and Ranjit Mukherjee (Kidderpore) Habib withdrew with an injury.