UEFA EURO 1960 (champions - Soviet Union)
The Soviet Union beat Yugoslavia 2-1 after extra time at the Parc des Princes on 10 July 1960, Viktor Ponedelnik heading the winner in the 113th minute, to become the first holders of the Henri Delaunay Cup. Only 17 nations entered, the four British associations among those who did not, and the USSR reached the finals on a walkover after Spain refused to play them.
Why this wins its question: The first European Championship is usually summarised as a scoreline and a Yashin mention. What decides it is the entry list: only 17 nations bothered, the four British associations and West Germany among those who stayed away, and the eventual champions reached the finals without kicking a ball in the quarter-final because Spain refused to play them. This object binds that, Delaunay's 1927 origin and the 200 Swiss Franc entry fee - and uses UEFA's own confirmation that Arthur Ellis refereed this final to shed light on the conflicting referee attributions for 1964.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The Soviet Union beat Yugoslavia 2-1 after extra time in the first European Nations' Cup final, at the Parc des Princes in Paris on 10 July 1960 in front of 17,966 spectators, becoming the first team to lift the Henri Delaunay Cup. They were the reigning Olympic champions, from Melbourne 1956, under the same coach, Gavriil Kachalin, and were captained by Igor Netto.
Milan Galic bundled Yugoslavia ahead just before the break, credited with turning in Jerkovic's cross-shot although Igor Netto was also in the vicinity - a goal that took Galic level with the world record of scoring in ten consecutive internationals. Slava Metreveli levelled after the restart when Blagoje Vidinic dropped Valentin Bubukin's long shot.
Lev Yashin, then 30, kept the Soviet Union in the match with a series of fine saves, especially from thunderous Borivoje Kostic free-kicks. Yugoslavia missed a golden chance in extra time when Jerkovic let the ball skid under his foot on the goal line, and with seven minutes left Viktor Ponedelnik headed the winner, in the 113th minute, from a cross by left winger Mikheil Meskhi.
Ponedelnik, 23 and at SKA Rostov-on-Don, was the first player called up by the Soviet Union while playing for a second-division club, and had justified the selection with a hat-trick on his debut in a 7-1 win against Poland in May 1960.
Only 17 nations entered the first qualifying competition: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were not interested, and Italy, the Netherlands and world champions West Germany also declined. The Soviet Union reached the final tournament on a walkover, after Spain refused to play them for political reasons.
The four-team finals ran from 6 to 10 July 1960 in France. Yugoslavia beat the hosts 5-4 in the opening semi-final at the Parc des Princes despite France twice leading by two goals; the Soviet Union beat Czechoslovakia 3-0 later the same night; and Czechoslovakia beat France 2-0 in the third-place play-off in Marseille on 9 July.
The competition was Henri Delaunay's idea. As general secretary of the French federation he had proposed a continental championship to FIFA in 1927, and returned to it on becoming UEFA's first General Secretary in 1954. He died in 1955; his son Pierre was made secretary of the organising committee and the trophy was named the Henri Delaunay Cup in recognition. The entry fee for the first edition was 200 Swiss Francs.
Both UEFA pages give England's Arthur Ellis as referee of this final, the guide adding that he had also refereed the first European Cup final at the same ground in 1956. This bears on a conflict recorded elsewhere in this corpus: UEFA's 1964 match report also names Ellis as referee of the 1964 final, where UEFA's 1964 guide names Arthur Holland as the English official at those finals. The 1960 attribution makes the 1964 report look like a carry-over rather than the 1964 guide being wrong, though no UEFA page says so.