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Beighton Cup is one of the oldest field hockey tournament running till date. Instituted in 1895, it is organised by Bengal Hockey Association and used to be held on natural grass at the Mohun Bagan ground on the Maidan in Kolkata (earlier called Calcutta) in India and for last few years has been held on Astro Turf (artificial grass) at Sports Authority of India (SAI East) in Kolkata . The Beighton Cup was presented by T.D. Beighton, Legal Remembrancer of the Government of Bengal, and was run initially by the Indian Football Association. The Calcutta Hockey League took off in 1905. British officers popularised the game amongst soldiers in India; hockey, as an organised sport, originated in Kolkata. The Anglo-Indian clubs of the time, most significantly, the Calcutta Naval Volunteers Club, now the Calcutta Rangers Club deserve a big share of the credit. Not only did Rangers Club win the Beighton Cup nine times, including in its inaugural year, it was directly responsible for two of the country's Olympic gold medals. When the Indian Olympic Committee did not have the funds to send the Indian team in 1932 and 1936, it was the generosity of the Rangers Club, rich with funds from its four-times-a-year sweepstakes, that ensured that the team set sail for Los Angeles and Berlin.〔 Some credit for popularising the game in India goes to the Irish Christian Brothers. Many of them were so skillful that they would have walked into the Indian team had it not been for their vocation. However, they passed on their skills to the boys who studied in the many schools that they ran, up in the hills and on the plains. St. James' School won the Beighton Cup way back in 1900.〔 In the 1940s and 1950s, Bengal had strong teams in Kolkata such as Customs and Port Commissioners, and Bengal-Nagpur Railway in Kharagpur. It went on to win the 1952 national hockey championship held in Kolkata, defeating Punjab. ==Dhyan Chand remembers== In his autobiography ''Goal!'', the legendray Dhyan Chand remembers his Beighton Cup debut. He says, “In my opinion it is perhaps the best organised hockey event in the country. Kolkata is indeed lucky that it has at least three or four first class hockey grounds on the maidan, and this is a great advantage to run a tournament on schedule. Instituted in 1895, this tournament has had a non-stop run. World Wars I and II did not affect the tournament. Threats of Japanese bombs and actual bombings in Kolkata while the hockey season was on also did not prevent the tournament from being held. That being said, it is sad to think that the tournament had to yield to the communal frenzy which gripped the nation in 1946-47.” He further says, “If anybody asked me which was the best match that I played in, I will unhesitatingly say that it was the 1933 Beighton Cup final between Calcutta Customs and Jhansi Heroes. Calcutta Customs was a great side those days; they had Shaukat Ali, Asad Ali, Claude Deefholts, Seaman, Mohsin, and many others who were then in the first flight of Indian hockey. I had a very young side. Besides my brother Roop Singh, and Ismail, who played for the Great Indian Peninsular Railway in Mumbai, I had no other really great player in the team. But I had a team which was determined to do or die. It was a great match, full of thrills, and it was just opportunism that gave us the victory. Customs were pressing hard and our goal was at their mercy. Suddenly I broke through and from midfield gave a long through pass to Ismail, who ran with Jesse Owens' speed half the length of the ground. A misunderstanding occurred between the Customs left-half and the goalkeeper, and Ismail, taking every advantage of it, cut through and netted the only goal of the match. We felt very proud of our triumph.”〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Beighton Cup」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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