CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 117 of 120

Correct — C, Durand Cup. The Durand Cup was started in 1888 and is the oldest existing club football tournament in Asia; on the world list only four national competitions are older, which makes it the fifth oldest football competition anywhere. It was founded by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of the British Raj from 1884 to 1894, who set it up while recovering from illness at Shimla, and it was played there in its early years before moving on to Delhi and later to Kolkata. That founder's name should ring a second bell, because the same Mortimer Durand negotiated the boundary between British India and Afghanistan that still carries his name — one man is behind both the Durand Line and the Durand Cup, which is a useful hook for two different questions.

• (a)Federation Cup — A knockout competition for Indian clubs introduced many decades after 1888, and one whose rise affected the Durand Cup's standing in the Indian calendar. Not the oldest by a long way.
• (b)Santosh Trophy — The national championship contested between the state and institutional football associations of India, a twentieth-century creation. It is a representative tournament rather than a club one, and much later in origin.
• (d)Rovers Cup — One of the old Indian club tournaments and often bracketed with the Durand Cup and the IFA Shield as a historic trophy, which makes it the most tempting of the three. It began after the Durand, and the Durand keeps the title of the oldest in Asia.

Indian football's oldest institutions grew out of the colonial garrison and the port cities. The Durand Cup began as a tournament at Shimla in 1888, and clubs from Calcutta and Bombay joined the calendar with their own competitions in the following years. Two of the world's four older competitions are the national cups of the British Isles, which is the company the Durand keeps.

Sports questions on the CDS paper divide into current results, which age badly, and founding facts, which do not. This is the second kind, and it comes back. Two anchors do the work: 1888 as the founding year, and the fact that the claim is to be the oldest in Asia rather than the oldest in India, which rules out arguments about which Indian trophy came second. It is also worth attaching the founder to the Durand Line, since Afghanistan's boundaries are asked about in the same papers — this very paper carries an Afghanistan question a few numbers earlier.

• The Durand Cup was established in 1888 by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of the British Raj from 1884 to 1894.
• It is the oldest existing club football tournament in Asia and the fifth oldest football competition in the world.
• It was founded while Durand was recuperating from illness at Shimla, and was played there before moving to Delhi and later Kolkata.
• The same Mortimer Durand gave his name to the Durand Line, the boundary demarcated between British India and Afghanistan.
• The Santosh Trophy is India's national championship between state and institutional associations, a different kind of competition from a club cup.

• Reading the claim as 'oldest in India' rather than 'oldest in Asia'; the answer is the same, but the reasoning differs.
• Confusing the Santosh Trophy, a state-versus-state championship, with a club tournament.
• Forgetting the double use of the Durand name, and so missing an easy cross-link to the Afghanistan questions.

As an oldest-or-first item on a named tournament, or as a match between trophies and the sports or formats they belong to.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Durand Cup, the oldest football tournament in Asia, was first held in which year?

  • (a)1872
  • (b)1888
  • (c)1901
  • (d)1911

  Answer(b) 1888 — founded by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand at Shimla; only four national football competitions in the world are older.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Santosh Trophy in Indian football is contested between

  • (a)professional clubs of the Indian Super League
  • (b)state and institutional football associations
  • (c)university teams
  • (d)armed forces teams only

  Answer(b) state and institutional football associations — it is India's national representative championship, distinct from club competitions such as the Durand Cup.