{"id":6211,"date":"2010-06-12T12:32:06","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T17:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=6211"},"modified":"2010-06-12T12:37:18","modified_gmt":"2010-06-12T17:37:18","slug":"real_men_do_it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/12\/real_men_do_it\/","title":{"rendered":"Real men do it barefoot"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend Amit emailed me earlier today asking me if I thought this was the single greatest Wikipedia<\/a> trivia fact ever. Ennis covered this back in 2006 but I think it is worth revisiting in greater detail:<\/p>\n\n

India qualified by default for the 1950 FIFA World Cup finals as a result of the withdrawal of all of their scheduled opponents. However, they did not take up their place in the competition. The Indian players were unable to play as boots were required according to FIFA legislation, and the Indian players were not used to footwear and thus refused. The Indian football team was known to play barefoot during the period<\/span><\/font>. In fact, Mohammed Abdul Salim one of the Indian football players played for Celtic F.C. barefoot.[2] The team has never since come close to qualifying for the World Cup. In the FIFA world cup 2010 qualifiers, India was eliminated in the first round by Lebanon. [Wiki<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

<<\/p>\n\n

p><\/p>\n\n

I tried to do a bit of digging and found what I believe to be the oldest organized soccer club in India, pre-dating the 1950 World Cup. It is Mohan Bagan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

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If you go to this site<\/a> and look at some really old pictures you can get a glimpse of their feet. Sure enough, they play barefoot.<\/p>\n\n

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1911 IFA SHIELD WINNING TEAM (beat the Yorkshire Regiment)<\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n

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But…a picture on the website from 1939 and this one from 1947, immediately preceding the 1950 World Cup seems to indicate they are, at the very least, wearing socks. So what is going on here? Did the Indian National Team remain barefoot while the club team had already transitioned to shoes? <\/p>\n\n

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<\/a><\/td><\/tr>\n
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1947 IFA SHIELD WINNING TEAM<\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n

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Just something to ponder while we all watch American try and upset England today. Also, if anyone is interested in writing a Bollywood script about the 1911 team and how they upset the Yorkshire Regiment please email me. I have a great idea for a movie about a rag tag bunch of Indian futbol players upsetting a bunch of wealthy British players. Looking for ideas about which actors should be involved, but I thought Amir Khan might be a good choice (even though it might be outside of his experience to play a sports character).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Amit emailed me earlier today asking me if I thought this was the single greatest Wikipedia trivia fact ever. Ennis covered this back in 2006 but I think it is worth revisiting in greater detail: India qualified by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6211"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}