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Indian Express
5 days ago
- Sport
- Indian Express
Durand Cup: How the oldest football league outside British Isles has evolved over time
The 134th edition of the Durand Cup, the oldest extant football tournament outside the British Isles, began in Kolkata on Wednesday. Established in 1888, Durand Cup was the most prestigious tournament in Indian football until the late twentieth century. Here's a brief history. The tournament is named after Sir Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat best known for drawing the contentious international border between British India (now Pakistan) and Afghanistan. Durand instituted the tournament in 1888 as recreation for British troops: the first edition saw the participation of six British and two Scottish regimental teams. Till 1940, the Durand Cup was held each September in Shimla, the summer capital of the Raj. Matches were played with full military pomp and pageantry in the picturesque meadow of Annandale. 'Smartly attired military bands played tuneful marching tunes before the match and during the interval. Pennants of the participating British regimental teams fluttered in the sun. The Viceroy of India would personally hand over the prizes,' Novy Kapadia, the legendary Indian football writer, wrote in Barefoot to Boots: The Many Lives of Indian Football (2017). In 1922, Calcutta-based Mohun Bagan became the first civilian side to take part in the tournament, paving the way for Indian participation. But in these initial years, the mostly barefoot Indian teams could not cope with superior British opposition. 'Realising this, Durand authorities came up with a unique idea in 1937, to have a separate tournament for all teams knocked out in the first round. This competition was known as the Little Durand, or 'Chhota' Durand, and was held concurrently with the main tournament,' Kapadia wrote. Another Calcutta-based club, Mohammedan Sporting, broke the British monopoly on the Durand Cup in 1940, the year the tournament moved to Delhi. In front of a 1,00,000-strong crowd at the Irwin Amphitheatre (now the Major Dhyanchand National Stadium), the team of 11 Muslims beat the Royal Warwickshire Regiment 2-1 in the final. After a break due to World War II, Independence, and Partition, the tournament resumed in 1950. Beginning with Dr Rajendra Prasad, a football enthusiast, the President of India took over the role of the erstwhile Viceroy in the final. 'Six Indian Presidents, from Rajendra Prasad to Neelam Sanjiva Reddy graced the Durand final and watched the complete match. During half-time they would have tea with the captains… [and] chat about football and sports…,' Kapadia wrote. While regimental teams of the Indian Army continued to take part — the Army still plays a central role in organising the Durand Cup — civilian clubs have been more dominant the post-Independence era. Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, with 17 and 16 wins respectively, have been the most successful teams in the tournament's history, followed by the Border Security Force team with seven wins. Punjab-based JCT has won five times. The Hyderabad City Police team was a formidable force in the 1950s and early-1960s, with four wins. 'For about four decades, till the end of the 1980s, the greatness of a player and even clubs was judged by how many Durand finals they had played in and how many Durand titles they had won,' Kapadia wrote. In the 1990s, attendance at the games, held in the Delhi Gate Stadium (later renamed Ambedkar Stadium), began dropping, which coincided with a general decline in interest in Indian football. The reasons, according to commentators, include the exposure on television to vastly superior foreign leagues, and the surge in the interest in cricket. As other leagues emerged — notably the I-League in the 1990s and the Indian Super League in the 2010s — big clubs such as Mohun Bagan and East Bengal gradually lost interest, often sending B-teams to Durand, or not sending sides at all. Since 2019, the tournament has been primarily hosted by Kolkata which remains the bastion of football in India. Although recent editions have managed to attract big sides, Durand nowadays is effectively a glorified pre-season tournament, providing managers an opportunity to fine-tune tactics and players before the domestic season begins.
BBC News
17-02-2025
- General
- BBC News
Warwick exhibition shows more than 200 years of army food
A temporary exhibition in a Warwickshire museum will explore the history of how the Army has fed its troops over the last 200 & Cookers – 200 Years of Food in the Army runs from 15 February until 26 April at The Fusilier Museum exhibition uses diary entries from Warwickshire soldiers, as well as objects linked to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, to paint a picture of provisions across to the display is included in admission tickets, and under-16s can enter for free. Included in the World War One section are hard tack biscuits, which were made from flour, water and a small amount of salt, and were baked until they were very tough."If you tried to eat them, you'd break your teeth," said Chris Kirby, the museum's general manager. "The idea of them was this indestructible food you could carry around with you anywhere. You wouldn't get attacked by vermin, it wouldn't suffer too much from different environmental conditions," he said."As soon as you put it into a stew or hot water you could make a food, a porridge with it."Soldiers even used to write on the biscuits, some examples of which are displayed. In World War Two, soldiers' food was more diverse and their diets more balanced, according to Mr were given rations that were a combination of tinned food and dry, packed exhibition sees containers from this period on display, including some from the German these are utensils such as spoons and forks, preserved from battlefields."What our research has suggested is, actually, the spoon is the most key utensil that a soldier will have to feed themselves with... forget a knife or a fork, a spoon is what you need," Mr Kirby said. The earliest war depicted in the exhibition is the 1899 Boer War in South from this period include chocolate bars and utensils."The bars of chocolate are still perfectly preserved," said Mr Kirby."Personally, as a chocolate lover, I don't know how anybody could have not eaten that a long time addition to the display, there is a talk on 1 March led by Paul Colbourne, WW1 expert and former National Geographic correspondent. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
