One Team One Dream – Meet Indian hockey's Barmy Army 

Meet the diehard fans of Indian hockey, who travel across the globe to support the blue brigade. In 2010, they formed a group 'One Team One Dream' and since then they haven’t missed any major tournament played at home soil or at any corner of the world, except for the Tokyo Olympics, which was out of bonds for the spectators because of COVID.

'One Team One Dream' (OTOD) is the Barmy Army of Indian hockey. It was during the 2010 Hockey World Cup hosted by India followed by 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games, when hundreds of Indian hockey fans living across the world came to New Delhi to cheer for the team India. And the platform gave birth to an Indian hockey fan group named 'One Team One Dream'.  

“Many of the Indian hockey fans have been following the team for the last three-four decades, but it was in 2010 when we formally made a platform for fans – OTOD. It’s an official Indian hockey fan group and the team too acknowledges the group,” said Raja Namdhari, one of the forces behind the OTOD. He has been following the team in major tournaments for the last two decades. 

“Now we have members, including women, across the country, and we have a strong presence in over 20 countries,” added Namdhari.   

After forming the OTOD, whenever and wherever the Indian team is playing, the fan group contacts all the members, including the ones who are based in that particular city or the country, and figures out who all can travel to support the team. 

“We make it a point that no Indian match should be left unattended by the group,” London-based Bhupinder Pala had said. Over the years he had watched over 300 international matches. “We had even booked an apartment in Tokyo for the Olympics but because of COVID restriction spectators were not allowed. Fifteen of the OTOD members assembled in Bangalore and watched all India’s matches together and saw the team making it to the Olympic podium after 41 years,” said Namdhari.