In the previous post I explained how I looked for some museum about the origin of football in Spain, which is regarded to have taken place in the province of Huelva, Spain.
The village of Rio Tinto claims such origin and it may well be so as it was there where the British colony working for Rio Tinto Company Limited established (at “Bella Vista” neighborhood).
The oldest football team in Spain is regarded to have been the Recreativo de Huelva (according to the Wikipedia originally known as Huelva Recreation Club), founded at the end of 1.889 by workers of the Rio Tinto mines and based in the city of Huelva, some 70 kilometres from Minas Rio Tinto.
I found some months ago, in the Spanish sports newspaper Marca, the following picture from an article of the “The Dundee Courier” (Monday, March 17, 1.890) covering the “first football match in Spain”.
It was supposedly played in Seville, at the Tabladar (close to Airbus Military factory nowadays), between the above mentioned Huelva Recreation Club and “Club de Football de Sevilla” (not related to the current Sevilla F.C.).
The article is an interesting read for its historic touch.
However:
- having been that Recreation Club from Huelva founded only in 1.889, by Rio Tinto workers,
- living many of the company workers at the village of Minas Rio Tinto, some 70 km from Huelva,
- having the workers other social clubs in Minas Rio Tinto (including Bella Vista) and
- being the company established in 1.873.
I’m afraid that probably the first match would have been played at Rio Tinto, not in Seville, and much earlier than in 1890.
At the mining museum of Minas de Rio Tinto, there is a small one-page text about the introduction of football by Rio Tinto Company Ltd. workers. In fact, in that text there is a mention of the celebration of a football match in 1.873 to celebrate the festivities of the local patron, San Roque.
But I am no historian, and thus would love to see some historian diving into that history and putting up the nice results in a museum in Rio Tinto :-).
Article of the “The Dundee Courier” (Monday, March 17, 1.890) covering the “first football match in Spain”.
The Blog by Javier 