Athletic Club de Bilbao

The Pride of the Basque Country

Their football, as always, is well-organised and physical and a game against the Lions continues to be one of the delights of Spanish football.

Athletic Club Data

Athletic Club Founded: 1898 Address: Alameda Mazarredo, 23 48009 Bilbao Phone: 00 34 94 424 08 77 / 94 424 08 78 Website: www.athletic-club.net Stadium: San Mamés Capacity: 39,750

Glorious Beginnings

Although Athletic's statutes were not signed until 1901 and the Bilbao team that won the first Copa de España the following year was called Club Viscaya, the proud Basques claim 1898 as the founding date and the first Cup as theirs and nobody in Spanish football, not even the Liga de Fútbol Profesional, is prepared to argue with them.

As Spanish Champions in 1902, 1903, 1904, 1910 and 1911, Athletic Bilbao were without doubt the force that dominated football in Spain throughout the early years. Furthermore, that early Athletic team in Rafael Moreno Aranzadi better known as 'Pichichi boasted the first legendary goalscorer in Spanish football and to this day Spain's top goalscorer each season is known as the Pichichi.

By 1913, the club was so successful and popular that they opened Spain's first stadium San Mamés, which is quite rightly known as The Cathedral of Spanish football.

Basque Dominance

It's significant too that not only Bilbao dominated Spanish football but the Basques did in general. In the 1920 Antwerp Olympics in which Spain won the Silver medal most of the team was made up of Basques, and of the 10 teams that made up the first Liga in 1928, 4 were were Basque – Athletic Club, Real Sociedad, Arenas de Getxo and Real Unión de Irun, who in 1930 were joined by Alavés making half of the Liga Basque.

Mister Bowler Hat

Many other clubs had English coaches at the time but Pentland's bowler hat and that he insisted on being called Mr Pentland have gone down in history. To this day, the coach of any Spanish team is still referred to as 'El Mister' and for Athletic fans he is almost as legendary as Pichichi.

Pentland's second stint in Bilbao brought the Liga-Copa double in 1930 and 1931 and two further Copas del Rey in 1932 and 1933, in which Athletic Club were also Liga runners-up – it was very nearly four doubles on the trot.

This period also brought the famed phrase ´Poco te queda bombín! Sólo tres minutos!' - 'Little time for you bowler hat! Only three minutes!' - owing to the fact that whenever Athletic Club won the players would whip off his bowler hat and jump on it until it was destroyed. Pentland had a standing order with a London haberdasher for 20 bowler hats a year but had to send for extra bowler hats for four consecutive seasons!

The Stand Against Fascism

When football resumed in 1939, Athletic Club's successes just like Barcelona's were seen as a blow to the regime and what's more Athletic Club's successes were based on their cantera (youth team) policy – the club to this day will only field Basque players – and in 1941 Telmo Zarraonaindia, more conveniently known as Zarra, made his debut for the club. In the following 13 seasons Zarra went to score 294 goals including 38 in 1950-51 season, a tally equalled by Hugo Sánchez in 1989-90, but to this day unbeaten.

Franco banned foreign words in club names so Athletic Club so it was Club Atlético de Bilbao that won the Liga-Copa double in 1943 and further Copas, now renamed the Copa del Generalísimo, in 1944 and 1945.

Other Copas del Generalísimo followed in 1950, 1955, 1956, which was also another Liga-Copa double season, and 1958 but, just like with Barcelona, the sixties and seventies were a relatively fallow period as hegemony in both football and politics had definitively moved to Madrid.

The Return of Democracy

Under Javier Clemente, the club won the Liga in 1983 and bagged the double again in 1984. However, whilst remaining amongst the three Spanish clubs never to have been relegated to Segunda, the last two decades have been increasingly difficult for Athletic Club, an unquestionable 'grande' of Spanish football.

Traditional Values in the Modern Game

However, a survey in the nineties revealed that 76% of Athletic supporters wanted the club to remain true to its roots and perhaps the words that club president José María Arrate wrote in the introduction to the club's centenary book best sum up the sentiments that many of us would like our clubs to uphold.

'Athletic Bilbao is more than a football club, it is a feeling – and as such its ways of operating often escape rational analysis. We see ourselves as unique in world football and this defines our identity. We do not say we are better or worse than others, merely different. We only wish for the sons of our soil to represent our club, and in so wishing we stand out as a sporting entity, not a business. We wish to mould our players into men, not just footballers, and each time that a player from the cantera makes his debut we feel we have realised an objective which is in harmony with the ideologies of our founders and forefathers.'

Quoted in Phil Ball's excellent book on Spanish football 'Morbo'

Athletic Club Squad 2008-09

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