When was Athletic Bilbao established?
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Meanwhile, sons of the Basque educated classes had made the opposite journey and went to Britain to complete their studies in civil engineering and commerce. While in the United Kingdom, these students developed an interest in football and on their return to Bilbao they began to arrange games with British workers. In 1898, students belonging to the Gymnasium Zamacois founded the "Athletic Club", using the English spelling. In 1901, a meeting was held in the Café García, which established more formal rules and regulations. In 1902, the two Bilbao clubs formed a combined team, known as "Bizcaya", in the first Copa del Rey. They returned with the trophy after defeating Barcelona in the final. This would lead to the eventual merger of the two clubs as "Athletic Club" in 1903. In the same year, Basque students also formed "Athletic Club Madrid"; this club later evolved into Atlético Madrid. The club's foundation date is a subject of debate among football historians. The club itself declares 1898, but others claim 1901 or 1903 as the true founding year.
History of Athletic Bilbao
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Bilbao Athletic, officially named Athletic Club "B", is the reserve team of Athletic Bilbao, a football club based in Bilbao, in the autonomous community of Basque Country. The team will play in the Segunda División B in the 2018–19 season. Founded in 1964, the team holds home matches at the small stadium attached to the club's training facility at Lezama, or occasionally at San Mamés Stadium, with its 53,500-seat capacity, for important fixtures.
Athletic Bilbao B
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The name was revived in 1964, when Athletic Bilbao decided to establish a reserve team with Agustín Gaínza as coach. The new "Bilbao Athletic" initially played in local regional leagues before winning promotion to Tercera División in 1966, under Rafa Iriondo; in 1969 they first reached Segunda División.
Athletic Bilbao B
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Athletic began playing in an improvised white kit, but in the 1902–03 season, the club's first official strip became half-blue, half-white shirts similar to those worn by Blackburn Rovers, which were donated by Juan Moser. Later, a young student from Bilbao named Juan Elorduy, who was spending Christmas 1909 in London, was charged by the club to buy 25 new shirts, but was unable to find enough. Waiting for the ship back to Bilbao and empty handed, Elorduy realised that the colours of the local team Southampton matched the colours of the City of Bilbao, and bought 50 shirts to take with him. Upon arriving in Bilbao, the club's directors decided almost immediately to change the team's strip to the new colours, and since 1910, Athletic Club have played in red and white stripes. Of the 50 shirts bought by Elorduy, half were then sent to Atlético Madrid, where Elorduy was a committee member and a former player; it had originally begun as a youth branch of Athletic Bilbao. Before the switch from blue and white to red and white, only one other team wore red and white, Sporting de Gijón, since 1905.
Athletic were one of the last major clubs who did not have the logo of an official sponsor emblazoned on their kit. In the UEFA Cup and the Copa del Rey of 2004–05, the shirt sported the word "Euskadi" in green in exchange for hundreds of thousands of euros from the Basque Government (Red, white and green are the Basque colours).
This policy was changed in 2008, when Athletic made a deal with the Biscay-based Petronor oil company to wear their logo in exchange for over €2 million. In 2011, Athletic revealed a new away kit that was inspired by the Basque flag. The Kutxabank logo now adorns the front of Athletic's kits.
Athletic Bilbao
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The "Bilbao Athletic" name was first used in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War, when both La Liga and the Copa del Rey were suspended; several of top Athletic players subsequently joined the "Euskadi XI". This team was put together at the suggestion of José Antonio Aguirre, the president of the Basque Country, himself a former Athletic Bilbao footballer.
Athletic Bilbao B
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The club was founded on 26 April 1903 as "Athletic Club Sucursal de Madrid" by three Basque students living in Madrid. These founders saw the new club as a youth branch of their childhood team, Athletic Bilbao who they had just seen win the 1903 Copa del Rey Final  in the city. In 1904, they were joined by dissident members of Real Madrid. The side began playing in blue and white, the then colours of Athletic Bilbao, but by 1911, both the Bilbao and Madrid teams were playing in their current colours of red and white stripes. Some believe the change came about because red and white striped tops were the cheapest to make, as the same combination was used to make bed mattresses and the unused cloth was easily converted into football shirts. This contributed to the creation of the nickname, "Los Colchoneros".
However, another explanation is that both Athletic Bilbao and Athletic Madrid used to buy Blackburn Rovers' blue and white kits in England. In late 1909, Juanito Elorduy, a former player and member of the board of Athletic Madrid, went to England to buy kits for both teams but failed to find Blackburn kits to purchase; he instead bought the red and white shirts of Southampton (the club from the port city which was his embarkation point back to Spain). Athletic Madrid adopted the red and white shirt, leading to them being known as "Los Rojiblancos", but opted to keep their existing blue shorts whereas the Bilbao team switched to new black shorts. Athletic Bilbao won the 1911 Copa del Rey Final using several 'borrowed' players from Athletic Madrid, including who scored one of their goals.
Atlético Madrid
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The team went on tour to raise funds for the Basque cause, and also played in Europe and Mexico. However, the "Campeonato de Vizcaya" continued to be played. With their best players on tour with the Basque team, Athletic could only field weakened sides and, as a result, chose to enter under the name "Bilbao Athletic"; the club's name was derived from the two clubs that merged in 1903 to become Athletic Bilbao – "Bilbao Football Club" and "Athletic Club". Despite this, they still won the championship and entered the 1939 Copa del Generalísimo.
Athletic Bilbao B
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Blasco began his career in 1926 when he joined Acero de Olabeaga. Two years later he signed for Athletic Bilbao where his first match was a friendly against Swansea City. During his time with Athletic Bilbao he won the Ricardo Zamora Trophy three times, and also played 5 times for the Spanish national team. He played with Athletic Bilbao until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 when all national competitions in Spain were put on hold. In 1937, in the midst of the civil war, he was selected for the Basque Country national football team which was sent abroad to raise funds for refugees fleeing the conflict. In 1938 that team integrated into the Mexican league under the name Club Deportivo Euzkadi. After one season the team dissolved and Blasco joined Real Club España. In 1941 he joined River Plate in Argentina, before returning to Mexico a year later to rejoin Club España. He stayed there until 1947 when he joined rival team Atlante. He was one of the first goalkeepers to use goalkeeping gloves.
Apart from being a footballer he also had a business selling construction materials.
Gregorio Blasco
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Back in 1911, a dispute occurred between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao regarding the latter fielding ineligible English players in the 1911 Copa del Rey; they had also employed the services of several (non-Basque) players from Atlético Madrid which was then a branch of the Bilbao club.67 This led to the Royal Spanish Football Federation introducing a rule for the next year's competition that all players must be Spanish citizens. As a large proportion of the players in that early era were Basque, relying on locals was no impediment to Athletic and they chose to maintain that approach even when the regulations were relaxed some years later.
Athletic Bilbao signing policy
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The core of boys from the local Biscay region are first introduced into the Lezama "Alevín" teams at around 10 years of age and advance by an age group every season through "Infantil", "Cadete" and "Juvenil" levels. The players who are retained by Athletic after their Juvenil A spell (aged about 17) typically join farm team CD Basconia in Basauri, with the squad normally expanded further with signings from the regions’s youth clubs, most notably Danok Bat and Antiguoko who regularly challenge the professional academy teams for the title in their División de Honor group. A number of senior players have also emerged from the Txantrea club in Pamplona who have a collaborative agreement with Athletic (renewed for four more years in 2017).
The players usually spend one or two seasons at Basconia before the best are promoted to the reserve team Bilbao Athletic and then on to the senior team when considered ready to do so. There are exceptions to this sequence; notably Iker Muniain showed such promise that he was promoted early to "Juvenil A" as a 15-year-old in 2008, was selected by Bilbao Athletic as soon as he turned 16 in January 2009 and became a senior team regular at the start of the next season.
Athletic Bilbao cantera