The Calcutta Cup is a sporting trophy awarded to the winner of the annual rugby union international fixture between England and Scotland which, nowadays, is played as part of the Six Nations Nations Championship. Indeed, the Calcutta Cup has the distinction of being the oldest sporting trophy of its kind, having been contested for the first time the better part of a century and a half ago.
The first Calcutta Cup match was played at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, as part of the Home Nations series of international friendly matches between England, Ireland and Scotland, on March 10, 1879. England forward George Burton scored the only try of the match, which was successfully converted by three-quarters Lennard Stokes, while Scotland scored a drop goal, courtesy of scrum-half Ninian Finlay. However, at the time, matches were decided on goals scored, so the inugural Calcutta Cup matched ended in an uninspiring 1-1 draw.
Nowadays, the venue for the Calcutta Cup match alternates between Twickenham, London and Murrayfield, Edinburgh, but the origin of the trophy lies, unsurprisingly, in India. In January, 1873, during the days of the British Raj, the Calcutta (Rugby) Football Club was founded in the then capital city of India, Calcutta (now Kolkata), by former pupils of Rugby School and joined the Rugby Football Union (RFU) the following year.
However, in 1878, with the popularity of rugby on the wane, the club was disbanded and the balance of its funds, 270 silver rupees, were smelted and crafted into a trophy by local silversmiths. The original trophy, which still exists, but remains permanently at the World Rugby Museum at Twickenham, is 18″ high and decorated with three king cobras, which form the handles, and an Indian elephant. The trophy was presented to the RFU, which decided against awarding it to the winner of a knockout competition among English clubs, as was the original intention, and decreed that it should be awarded to the winners of the annual England-Scotland match instead.
According to audience research company GWI (formerly GlobalWebIndex), the most popular participatory sport in the world is swimming, although the percentage of Internet users taking part varies significantly from region to region across the globe. In North America, where 32% of those questioned said they swam regularly, and in Europe, where 26% of respondents did likewise, heads the list of most played sports. In the Asia Pacific region, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa, where 39%, 20% and 32% of subjects, respectively, said that they were frequent swimmers, swimming ranked second, behind badminton in the case of Asia Pacific and behind association football, or soccer, in the other two regions.
However, it should not be forgotten that the Asia Pacific region includes the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, and is home to 4.3 billion people, or 60% of the global population. The vast populace of the region accounts not only for the dominance of swimming worldwide, but also for the fact that badminton – which does not feature in the top five participatory sports in any other region, but is routinely played by 44% of surveyees in Asia Pacific – ranks second on the global list.
Beyond the top two places, association football, or soccer, which is unquestionably the most popular spectator sport in the world, is only the third most played. Participation figures of 37% in Latin America and 41% in the Middle East and Africa are tempered by much lower figures in Asia Pacific (27%), Europe (21%) and, particularly, North America (13%), where the ‘beautiful game’ is less popular than not only swimming, but also exercise classes, basketball and cycling.
The ice skate is definitely prehistoric in origin, dating back to the first, second, third or even fourth millenium BCE. As such, it is impossible to identify a single inventor, but archeological evidence points toward Northern Europe and, in particular, the Scandinavian Peninsula, as the birthplace of skates and skating.
Early ice skates were fashioned from animal bones, often from horses or cattle, pierced with holes and tethered to the feet with leather straps. They did not have a blade, so they relied on residual fat on the bones to reduce friction; skaters propelled themselves along by pushing on the ice with a stick while keeping their legs almost straight, for balance.
Bone ice stakes remained largely unchanged for millenia. Indeed, in the preface to his ‘Vita Sancti Thomae’, or ‘Life of St. Thomas’, which was written in 1173-74, William FitzStephen wrote, ‘…if the moors in Finsbury and Moorfield freeze over, children from London play. Some of the children have attached bones to their ankles, and carry well-worn sticks.’
The forerunner of the modern ice skate evolved in the Netherlands during the Late Middle Ages. A wooden footplate and a double-edged iron, or steel, blade replaced bone and allowed skaters to propel themselves using their legs, thereby creating the now-familiar, smooth skating movement.
Later significant stages in the evolution of the modern ice skate were the introduction of the all-steel skate, by Philadelphia businessman Edward Bushnell, in 1850 and the development of the two-plate, all-metal blade, by the so-called ‘Father of Figure Skating’, New York ballet dancer turned figure skater Jackson Haines, in 1856. The first ‘closed toe’ blade made from a single piece of steel, thereby allowing skates to become stronger, but lighter, was invented by Minnesota sporting goods retailer John Strauss in 1914.
The short answer is yes, it was, for five consecutive Olympic Games in the early twentieth century. Indeed, the governing body of the sport, the Tug of War International Federation (TWIF), which was founded in 1960, states that its primary objective is ‘to expedite our acceptance by the International Olympic Committee as a sport within the programme of the Olympic Games.’
Tug of war originally made its Olympic debut at the Games of the II Olympiad in Paris on July 16, 1900. In the absence of the United States’ team, which withdrew because of scheduling issues, the competition consisted of a single, best-of-three match between Racing Club de Paris and a hastily assembled Scandinavian team, featuring three athletes apiece from Denmark and Sweden. The combined Scandinavian team won the gold medal 2-0.
Four years later, in St. Louis, Missouri, six teams entered the tug of war competition, albeit four of them, including the gold, silver and bronze medallists, representing the home nation. At the 1908 Summer Olympics, in London, tug of war teams were increased in size to eight pulling members, from five or six, and nations were limited to a maximum of three teams apiece. Once again, the home nation dominated, with City of London Police beating Liverpool Police 2-0 in the gold medal match and Metropolitan Police walking over against Sweden in the bronze medal match.
Four years later still, at their home Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden gained revenge on a Great Britain team once again featuring members of City of London and Metropolitan Police, but no-shows by Austria, Bohemia and Luxembourg reduced the competition to just two, best-of-three matches. The proposed 1916 Summer Olympics, in Berlin, was cancelled due to World War I, but tug of war made one final appearance at the 1920 Summer Olympics, in Antwerp, with Great Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium winning the medals.
An association football, or ‘soccer’ ball, essentially consists of an inflatable bag, or bladder, surrounded by a lining and covered with synthetic leather. A synthetic rubber, known as butyl rubber, or just butyl, is impermeable to air and, as such, is the material of choice for bladders in high-quality footballs. Likewise, polyester, a synthetic fabric, has replaced cotton as the material of choice for linings in state-of-the-art footballs, principally because its fibres degrade slower than the natural alternative. Several layers of lining are laminated together and placed between the bladder and the cover to provide shape, strength and consistent bounce characteristics.
The outer cover of high-end footballs typically consists of panels of polyurethane (PU) leather, which is not waterproof, but water-resistant, so does not become waterlogged like old-fashioned full grain leather. Most footballs consists of 32 panels, 20 hexagonal and 12 pentagonal, arranged to form a figure that mathematicians call a truncated icosahedron. Once assembled and inflated, the faces of the football bulge due to the internal air pressure to create a perfect sphere, as required by the Laws of the Game.
Upmarket footballs are usually tightly hand-stitched, with thick, waxed polyester or nylon cord, by turning the ball completely inside out. Hand-stitching is highly labour-intensive and even an experienced stitcher can take three or four hours to complete a single football from start to finish. Neverless, the process creates deep, strong seams that are water- and wear-resistant. By contrast, thermally bonded, or moulded, footballs are not stitched at all. Instead, adhesive is applied to the edges of the component panels, which are assembled in a mould and heated, under pressure, to join them together. This process is obviously less labour-intensive, and cheaper, than hand-stitching the panels together, but the finish is inferior.