1.    Sudanese refugee Majak Daw became the first black African-born player to join an Australian Rules Football League team when he joined North Melbourne in 2009. Majak fled the civil war in Sudan in 2003, and made the transition from football player to Aussie Rules star in just four years after switching to the sport.

2.    The national team go by the rather exotic name of the Desert Hawks.

3.    Sudan were one of just three teams that competed in the Inaugural African Nations Cup competition in 1957

4.    Sudan lifted the African Nations Cup trophy thirteen years later, when they hosted the tournament.

5.    The Sudanese Football Federation was founded way  in 1936

6.    Sudan are currently ranked 108th in FIFA’s world rankings out of a total of 203 football nations.

7.    The biggest football clubs in Sudan are Al Hilal and Al Merreikh

8.   Many consider the 1920s Khartoum state league to be the first recognised football league in Africa.

9.    It was the Turkish and Egyptians –not the British- that introduced football to Sudan.

10.  In 2009 Sudan hosted the tempestuous World Cup play-off match between Egypt and Algeria

 

I had 2 and 7, and okay 10 when I read it.

 

Bjorn and Justin Walley