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SPORTS
encyclopedia
The game was introduced in the Olympics in 1908 when England'
defeated Denmark 2-0 in the final. The World Cup, the most prestigious
and widely followed sports tournament of the world, was instituted in 1930
as the Jules Rimet Cup. It became the permanent property of Brazil for
having won it the third time in 1970; Brazil had earlier won the World Cup
in 1958 and 1962. The World Cup in 1974 in Germany saw the. second
phase of this World Championship known as the FIFA World Cup.
The game of football was brought to India by the Britishers and the
Indian populace easily took to the game, which first became popular in the
Bengal region and then spread to other parts of the country. Organised
football was introduced in India by the British Army in 1880, but there is
evidence of a football match in 1802 in Bombay between a Military team
and an Island team of Bombay. The first official match was organised in
Calcutta between the Etonians and the rest. The first trophy instituted in
Calcutta was the Traders’ Cup in 1889, now played as a junior tournament.
Club football had become popular in India in the late 19th century with the
formation of the Mohun Bagan Club in 1889 and Mohammedan Sporting in
1891. The Durand Cup football tournament, the world’s second oldest
tournament, was started in Shimla in 1888. Since 1941, the tournament is
being regularly held on .an annual basis in New Delhi. The Indian Football
Association, Calcutta, the oldest State-level organisation in India was
formed in 1893, the same year in which the IFA Shield tournament was
started. The Rovers Cup football tournament founded in 1891 has been
conducted by the Western India Football Association since 1911, the year
in which the association was founded.
The All-India Football Federation was founded on 23rd June, 1937 at
Shimla in the committee room of the Army headquarters with 10 members
and the national championship for the Santosh Trophy (named after the
Maharaja of the erstwhile state of Santosh, now in Bangladesh) introduced
in 1941. The DCM Trophy football tournament started in 1945 became an
international tournament from 1968 with the participation of foreign teams.
India made its Olympic debut in football at the 1948 London Games, but
lost 1-2 to France in the first match. In the 1956 Melbourne Olympics India
became the first Asian nation to reach the semifinals of an Olympic football
event defeating Australia 4-2 in the quarter-final including a hat-trick by
Neville D’ Souza of Bombay. Since the 1960 Rome Olympics, India has not
qualified for the Olympics. With the British regimental teams dominating
the initial phase of Indian football, the Bangalore Muslims became the first
Indian team to win the Rovers Cup in 1937 defeating Mohammedan
Sporting 1-0 in the final.
India won the gold medals in the 1951 and 1962 Asian Games at New
Delhi and Jakarta respectively and the bronze medal in the 1970 Bangkok
Asiad. Having won the quadrangular tournaments in 1953, 1954 and 1955,
India finished as runners-up to hosts Malaysia in the 1959 Merdeka Cup.
The other major tournaments in the Indian football calendar include the
Federation Cup tournament. Started in 1977 at Er- nakulam when ITI,
Bangalore beat Mohun Bagan 1-0 in the final, this inter-club tournament
gives the winning team the right to the title of the ‘champion club of India’;
Stafford Cup tournament - started in Bangalore in 1930s when the game
became popular in the city due to the stationing of many military units, the
tournament has now become an all-India tournament with the participation
of well- known teams from Calcutta, Goa and Bombay; Dr. B.C. Roy
Trophy
junior national tournament; and the Sir Iqbal Hussain Trophy for the
mini nationals.
India also conducts the Jawaharlal Nehru International Gold Cup
tournament, which was inaugurated on 16th February 1982 at Calcutta.
India has also been participating in the Asian Youth soccer
championship with the best performance being the sharing of the title with
Iran in 1974 at Bangkok.
Awards and Winners
Padma Shree
: G. Paul and Salien Manna
Arjuna : P.K. Banerjee, T. Balaram, Subimal (Chunni) Goswami,
Jarnail Singh, Arun Lai Ghosh, Yousuf Khan, Peter Thangaraj,
Inder Singh, Syed Nayeemuddin, Chandeshwar Prasad Singh,
Magan Singh Rijvi, Gurudev Singh, Prasun Banerjee, Subroto Bhat-
tacharjee, Mohammed Habib and Sudhir Karmakar.
Dronacharya
(for coaches) : A. Latif and Syed Nayeemuddin
Winners of Asian Games Football Championship
SI.No.
Year
Winner
Venue
1.
1951
India
New Delhi
2
.
1954
China
Manila
3.
1958
China
Tokyo
4.
1962
India
Jakarta
5.
1966
Burma
Bangkok
6
.
1970
Burma & South Korea
Bangkok
7.
1974
Iran
Teheran
8
.
1978
South and North Korea
Bangkok
9.
1982
Iraq
New Delhi
10
.
1986
South Korea
Seoul
11
.
1990
Iran
Beijing
On the World Cup scene, India qualified for the fourth World Cup in
1950 from Group 10, but the team was subsequently withdrawn from the
tournament.
WOMEN’S FOOTBALL
Women’s football was introduced in India in the International Women’s
Year by S.R. Zaidi. The Women’s Football Federation of India was formed
in 1975 and the first national women’s championships held during 1975/76
at the Central Sports Stadium, Lucknow. Mr. Zaidi was also responsible for
the introduction of junior nationals, zonal, inter-zonal and Federation Cup
tournaments for women in India.
The first national coaching camp preparatory to playing against
Thailand was held at Calcutta from 26th April to 8th May, 1976 and to G.S.
Bharati of Karnataka went the honour of becoming the captain of the first
national team. In 1977, a Swedish team played a series of matches in India,
followed in 1978 by an eight-match series by Tiversan, a team from South
England. While the Indian team’s participation in the second Asian
Confederation tournament was cancelled due to non-availability of visa and
non-clearance by the government, the Women’s Football Federation of
India played host to the third Asian Women’s football championship in
1980 at Calicut. Six foreign and two Indian teams participated in the tour-
nament, which was won by China. Between 1970 and 1977, three
Eternal India