The Beighton Cup (also known as the Coal India Beighton Cup for sponsorship reasons) is a field hockey tournament organized by Hockey Bengal (formerly the Bengal Hockey Association). Instituted in 1895, it is one of the oldest field hockey tournaments in the world and is held every year in Kolkata.

History

Aristocratic 19th century origins

Instituted in 1895, the tournament's origins are steeped in both the era of British colonialism and the English aristocracy. The tournament was named after its British donor, Judge Thomas Durant Beighton of the Indian Civil Service and Legal Remembrancer to the Government of Bengal. Born in 1846, Beighton died in Gibraltar of heart failure in February 1906.

Beighton had married for a second time in 1897 and in 1898 had a son, Thomas Percival Durant Beighton (aka T.P.D. Beighton, died 1971), who was, like his father, a keen sportsman, particularly at both Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford University. He later published his accounts as a motoring enthusiast; a sport, like cricket, that he enjoyed with his brother-in-law, John Alfred Middleton, MC, whose wedding to T.P.D. Beighton's sister, Dorothea, in London at St Peter's Church, Eaton Square had featured on the front page of the Daily Mirror on 5 January 1922. T.P.D. Beighton and Middleton had been boarders together at Winchester and then enlisted during WWI following which they both entered Christ Church, Oxford as freshmen in 1919. T.P.D. Beighton's wife, Kathleen Muriel Beighton (née Hood), was the daughter of sports benefactor Sir Joseph Hood, 1st Baronet.

Recent decades

Today, the Beighton Cup hockey tournament is organised by Hockey Bengal, previously called the 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. For last few years, it has been held on Astro Turf (artificial grass) at Sports Authority of India (SAI East) in Kolkata. The Beighton Cup was initially organized by the Indian Football Association, until the Bengal Hockey Association took over in 1905.

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 legendary 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."

Hockey in Kolkata

Apart from the Beighton Cup, Kolkata had many firsts in hockey to its credit. The first hockey association in India was formed in 1908 — the Bengal Hockey Association. The first national hockey championship of India was held in 1928. It was called the inter-provincials, with 5 provinces of undivided India participating. The first Indian Olympic team for the Amsterdam Games was selected in Kolkata after the 1928 nationals.

Twenty-seven Olympic gold medals, two silver medals and one bronze medal ~ that is what Bengal's hockey can boast of. However, all that is history and Kolkata no longer has a hockey Olympian. Despite its pioneering role in the history of Indian hockey, Kolkata is the only major metropolis in India without an artificial turf. "How can you hope to produce international class players if you cannot give the players astroturf to play on?" asks Gurbux Singh, secretary of the Bengal Hockey Association. Leslie Claudius agreed that the absence of astroturf is responsible for this decline, but added: "Ours was a different era. We were successful, so the enthusiasm for the game was naturally high. How can you have that today? Even the educational institutions are not interested in hockey nowadays. But you can't blame them. Young people don't find hockey exciting enough. Maybe if we can give them astroturf, the fast surface can lure them back into the game."

Big names

Leslie Claudius was the biggest name in Kolkata hockey; he played for Customs in Kolkata, and won 4 Olympic medals from 1948 to 1960 (3 gold, 1 silver).

Results

The results of the Beighton Cup:

Performance by teams

References

Further reading

• (Published online: "Routledge Contemporary South Asia"; 1 July 2010).