The ‘soccer’ story

NI1. Where does the word ‘soccer’ come from? NI2. Conceived by sports writer Gabriel Hanot, which award was first given to Stanley Matthews of England in 1956?

NI3. Name the only person to have played both World Cup Football and World Cup Cricket.

NI4. Which former Dutch footballer started a sports underwear company named Under Jeans, after retiring?

NI5. Yesterday marked the 153rd anniversary of the Suez Canal, one of the most important transit routes in history. As the Suez Canal neared completion in 1869, French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi tried to convince Ferdinand de Lesseps and the Egyptian government to let him build a sculpture called “Egypt Bringing Light to Asia” at its Mediterranean entrance. Bartholdi envisioned a 90-foottall statue of a woman clothed in Egyptian peasant robes and holding a massive torch, which would also serve as a lighthouse to guide ships into the canal. The project never materialised, but Bartholdi continued pitching it until he finally unveiled a massive sculpture years later. How do we know it?

NI6. In 1961, he became the first American to travel into space, just 23 days after the historic flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. Less than 10 years later, he once again became the centre of attention when he lived every golfer’s dream to strike golf balls from the moon’s surface which travelled miles and miles. The world celebrated his 99th birth anniversary today. Name him.

NI7. Mickey Mouse made his big-screen debut in Steamboat Willie on November 18, 1928. He was also the first cartoon character to ever speak. It was in the 1929 film The Karnival Kid.

What were his first words?

NI8. Which was the first instance of night racing at Formula 1?

NI9. This game is called ‘Chutes and Lawyers’ and one of the characters is Clarence Darrow, a tiny figurine carrying a briefcase. The objective of the game is to slide down a chute and then work your way up through the appellate system, Which theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner is the inventor of the game? NI10. Below is the photograph of Passive Resisters Soccer Club team, taken a long time ago. Which world leader (circled) can be seen here?

Answers

NI1. The British invented the word ‘soccer’ in the 1890s – it’s originally an abbreviation of the word “association”, as in “assoc.” For the most of the 20th century, the sport was known interchangeably as soccer and football. NI2. The Ballon d’Or (“Golden Ball”), an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football. Between 2010 and 2015, an agreement was made with FIFA, and the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year and known as the FIFA Ballon d’Or. The partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d’Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award The Best FIFA Men’s Player. NI3. Sir Vivian Richards. He played football for Antigua in 1974 World Cup qualifiers.

NI4. Frank Rijkaard.

NI5. Officially called “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the monument has since become better known as the ‘Statue of Liberty’. Its original idea was for a lighthouse at the entrance to the Suez Canal.

NI6. Alan Shepard.

NI7. “Hot dogs!”

NI8. The 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, followed by the twilight Abu Dhabi GP a year later. NI9. Shelton Cooper from The Big Bang

Theory.

NI10. Mahatma Gandhi. As the undisputed leader of non-violent resistance to the apartheid regime of the time, Gandhi helped establish three football clubs, with the same name, at the beginning of the last century, in Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg.