History of Sports in Calcutta ------------------------------------------------------------------------

About three hundred years ago, when Job Charnak's ship landed on the banks of Hoogly, he never dreamt of founding Calcutta by combining three villages. Similarly, all the people who landed with him probably did not have any intention of taking part in athletic activities here. They were so busy in trying to fulfill their mission in India that they did not find time for sports till they won the battle of Plassey in 1757. Soon Calcutta became the capital of the powerful centre of the British in India. The employees of the East Indian Company now turned their attention to entertainment.

The first time an article was published on sports in Calcutta was in 1792 in the "Madras Courier". It was about the cricket matches being played between the Calcutta Cricket club (CCC) and two teams from Dumdum and Barrackpore. Because of this it is generally believed that CCC is the oldest cricket club outside Great Britain.This club has been the pioneer in making this game popular all over India. Near the end of the 19th century, two teams from England came here to play cricket. In 1926, MCC made an official tour to India under Arthur Gilligan and it was CCC which was mainly responsible for bringing them here. Gilligan , being pleased with the Indian team's performance here gave a good report when he went back and thus India became the member of the International Cricket Conference (ICC).

Besides the English, various Anglo-Indian clubs also helped to make cricket popular. The Bengali clubs at that time were Town, Aryan, Sporting Union, Mohun Bagan, Kumartuli etc. The result of all these probably culminated in the first cricket World Cup final outside England in the world's second largest stadium, the Eden Gardens in Calcutta, in 1987.

Calcutta played a big part in making many other sports  popular all over India.   The first 'open' football (Soccer) tournament in India was the "Trade's Cup" which started  in 1889. It was a team from the "Shobhabazar Club" which became the first ever Indian team to defeat an European team (East Surrey Regiment) in 1892 in a Trade's Cup match. However it was the win of the I.F.A. Shield by Mohun Bagan in 1911 by defeating a British team in the final, that is a legend now.

Cricket and football were made popular by the people who came with the East India Company- they included Govt. officials, businessmen, teachers, missionaries and newspaper reporters. The Bengali's were introduced to different sports in the various Colleges they studied at and then after graduating joined athletic clubs or were involved in founding new clubs. It was one of these prestigious colleges (the St. Xavier's college) that produced an Anglo Indian student named Norman Pritchard who participated in the Paris Olympics in 1900 and won silver medals in the 200m track and field race and the  hurdles, thereby becoming the first Indian and Anglo Indian to win a medal at the Olympics. Unfortunately no one remembers his name today. He even served as the secretary of the Indian Football Association for three years.

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