Athletic Club

Bilbao FC, Athletic Club, and Club Bizcaya

Football was introduced to Bilbao by two distinct groups with British connections: British workers and Basque students returning from schools in Britain. In the late 19th century, Bilbao was a leading industrial town, thus becoming the home to a large British colony, mainly made up of migrant workers, including shipyard workers and miners from various areas of England, such as Southampton, Portsmouth, and Sunderland. Along with coal, they brought with them (as in so many other parts of the world) the game of football. Meanwhile, sons of the Basque educated classes, such as Juan Astorquia, went to Britain to complete their studies, and while there they developed a deep interest in football. When they returned, they began to organize games with British workers at the Hippodrome of Lamiako, which at the time was the home of organized football in Biscay. In 1898, Juan Astorquia and six other Basque students belonging to the Gymnasium Zamacois began to practice football in Lamiako. Three years later, in 1901, at a meeting held at the Café García, this group of football pioneers, now larger, began conversations to become a legalized official football club, which they called Athletic Club, using the English spelling. Luis Márquez became the club's first president, while Astorquia and Alfred Mills (the club's only foreign-born founder) were named the team's captain and vice-captain, but in 1902, Astorquia replaced Márquez as…