The not so far -fetched theory that argues that the cradle of Spanish football is in an unsuspected place: Vigo

In football not all matches are played on the grass. For years there is a struggle that is settled in the newspaper libraries, the archives and local chronicles of the Spain of the late 19ths: that of the origins of the origins of Foot-Ball homeland The most widespread version, the canonic and the one that Mention The Royal Federation (RFEF) on its webs Recreationalthe dean of national football.

However, there is a theory that places the cradle of Spanish football at the other end of the Peninsula, in Galicia. To be more precise at the Vigo docks.

What is the cradle of football? You may like more or less, but kicking a ball has always made us funny. The citizens of ancient Greece practiced a game called Episkyrosthe peoples of pre -Columbian Mesoameric had their popular Pok-a-tok And even the Vikings were fond of Knattleikr. If we talk about football as we know it today, however, the genesis of sport must be located later, in nineteenth century England.

There, in him Mortlake districton the outskirts of London, a match between Barnes Football Club and the Richmond Football Club was held more than a century and a half ago than It would be crucial For the history of modern football. The reason? Its rules. Before, matches had been played, but with guidelines agreed by the teams themselves. The December 1863 was the first one that was governed by the rules of the newly created Football Association (FA), founded only a couple of months before.

And when do you jump to Spain? The most widespread version ensures that football came to our country not much later, in the 1870s, via Huelva. And for reasons that have more to do with finance economy than sport. In 1873 it was established A company of British capital to exploit the deposits of the Riotinto Minera Basin and with it they landed in the British region that soon gave free rein to one of its great hobbies, football.

South Canal remember That on August 16, 1873, coinciding with the patron saint festivities of San Roque, a match was already held in the town, “the first football played in Spain,” the local chain says. Of that set echoed A few years ago ‘Mines and Riotinto, cradle of football in Spain’, a work published with the support of the Diputación de Huelva, which would confirm that the first goal of Spain was sung in the small town of the region of the Mining Basin.

And the first team? Five years later, in 1878, the Riotinto English Cluban association that facilitated that British engineers and sailors could practice sports such as Cricket, Polo, Pole Lawn-Tenis or the Foot-Ballwhich in turn referred to the creation of the Rio Rio FC. The recreational itself remember That there is a record of at least one match played in the province on September 10, 1874, an encounter between personnel in charge of the railroad tracks that linked Huelva and the mines and a gang moved to Gibraltar.

Sobple matter? Not at all. Years ago a Galician story, José Ramón Cabanelas, took a surprise while diving in the newspaper library of Vigo lighthousenewspaper founded in 1853. The expert was looking for documentation for a book on the origins of the Eastern Telegraph Company (the English cable) in the Galician city when he met a brief and irony passage that activated his historian instinct. The reason? What counts … and what suits.

The text was signed by some of the chroniclers of Vigo lighthouse June 10, 1876, And tells: “Again they have visited us (to the casino) the English. They are as friendly! They walk like four, they step on six and drink like fifty. They fish, hunt, smoke, paint and play ball according to their use and way.” To any other reader the comment would have gone unnoticed, but Cabanelas remained a question: what did the English mean that the English “play the ball”?

Are there British in Vigo? Yes. If in the 70s of the nineteenth century Mines de Riotinto had displaced British to take care of the exploitation of their mines, Vigo had them for another business as relevant: the management of the telegraph. Since 1873 the city welcomed offices of the Eastern Telegraph Companycompany that Vigo had chosen for its good location as access to the peninsula and the tranquility of its estuary. In fact, years later, in 1896, another similar company would also be established, the Deutsch Atlantische TelegrapheGellchaftthe German cable. Each arrived in addition to its patriot colony.

And how important is that? Much, according to Cabanelas. The historian recalls that the English cable offices settled in Vigo in May 1873 and the British transferred to the city soon A franchise From the Exiles Club Club, an association where the expatriates could meet, stay with their families, chat about the future of the convulsive start of the twentieth century … and also practice the most popular sports in England and organize teams.

Perhaps in Galicia there were still no players accustomed to football, but Vigo already had at that time from a port through which English flag ships with crew willing to play a match against his compatriots of the telegraph. The meetings were played in the Malecon, an area located today in the urban center and that stands out as one of the most sought -after in the city.

Conclusion? Cabanelas It is clear: “The first football matches began to be played in Vigo as soon as the English cable arrives in May 1873”. Another chronicle of Vigo lighthouse Of 1880, he confirms that by then the “games with ball” were so popular that they aroused the interest of the neighbors, moving “so many spectators as Rafael Díaz used to have in their equestrian circus.”

“The English settled in Vigo in 1873, that is, ten years after the Constitution in England of the Football Association and, from the first moment, their customs were brought to our city, including that of the Foot-Ballto which in Spain it occurred in those years of the name of the ball game “, duck.

What is the first team? In An article Published in 2015 in the Gallego newspaper, Cabanelas goes further and argues that the opening in May 1873 of the English cable offices in Vigo arrived accompanied by British linked already from its training stage in Porthcurno to the exile, the “exiles”, a name that refers to its isolation with respect to the rest of its compatriots.

“In this way, in May 1873, when the first English cable office on Real Street opens, a large group of young people who, in addition to being well trained in telegraphic knowledge were also in sports culture.

“From Vigo what we claim are the first goals of Spain for the exile Vigo FC, because the one that until now was considered the first soccer club in the country, the Riotinto FC, was founded in 1878”, Razon Cabanelaswhich insists that the Huelva club was not formalized up to “five years after the exile, which already existed in 1873, the year in which the English cable disembark with him in our city.”

With the passage of time, the expert claims to have been made with symbols of the Galician club, such as The original shield that looked in the Zamarra of the Exiles Cable Club.

Sobple matter? At all. The controversy is served, as could be verified in February 2023, when Academia Play published A video to celebrate the Celtic centenary in which he ensures that “Vigo is the cradle of football in Spain.” The piece perhaps had gone unnoticed (without lifting ampoules) if it had not shared it the official account of the Celta RC to anger the recreational RC of Huelva, which He replied To that publication with a blunt message.

“Friends of the Celta RC, congratulations for your centenary from the dean of Spanish football and from the cradle province of football in Spain, in which, since 1873, and to manage perfectly documented, football was played in Riotinto mines. We respect the story,” replied. And yes, capital letters are yours.

Similar opinion shares the historian Alejandro Quiroga, who Discard Any possible rivalry: “The importance of Riotinto is that the British left a legacy and ended up creating the recreational of Huelva in 1889 (while in the Galician case it seems that the track is lost until years later, when the sport resurfaces as in so many port cities and is definitively based on the Vigo Foot-Ball Club and then with the real fortune of 1905.”

Are there more applicants? The most curious thing is that Riotinto and Vigo are not the only ones to claim a capital place in the genesis of Spanish football. A few decades ago it was made something similar In Vilagarcía de Arousa, another town Pontevedra, after another local collector to show a magazine of 1783, Compostela Republican echoin which there is already talk that the sailors of the Go-Go ship had arrived at the Galician Marine Villa with a sport that was played with a ball.

“The first known news about football was published in the Republican echo of Compostela and dates grants and historian Bernardo Salazar.

Images | Sergei Gussev (Flickr), Wikipedia and MINAS DE RIOTENTO City Council

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