I did not type the "9"; I went to insert => page number and added the page number in the footer.

As for the section breaks, I just checked, and you are absolutely correct. Page 9 is actually the first page of the TOC; I want a page number in the footer of the first page of the TOC as well as the following pages.

In this process I also found that the words "Table of Contents" which is in the header of the TOC starting with the 2nd page of the TOC (p.10), had also crept into the header of the first page of the TOC (p.9)-- which I do not want. And I had had a section break at the beginning of the TOC earlier, due to which I was surprised as to why the words "Table of Contents" were appearing on the first page of the section? So, confused about this, I added a next page section break, putting it at the bottom of p.8.

But now that you said it looks like there is a section break between pages 9 and 10, I checked-- and there is! That was quite surprising to me as I hadn't put one there. So I turned on the hidden characters, and found that not only is there a "next page section break" which I've just put at the bottom of page 8, but there is also a "continuous section break" at the top of page 9 i.e. the page where the TOC starts. And these two back to back section breaks are, it seems, what is causing the section break between pages 9 and 10 as I do not have any section break directly located there. So which section break should I remove? The "next page section break" at the end of p.8, or the "continuous section break" at the top of page 9? I want the header at the top of p.9 to remain empty.