Metro UK: Dundee Jammed with Seville in Football History

On the ball: The report from 1890 which confirms the founding of Seville FC.

 

DUNDEE’S history as the capital of jam, jute and journalism could help a Spanish football club prove its claim to be among the oldest in Europe.

Seville FC’s act of constitution has been found on the British Newspaper Archive by the club’s history department, after the story of the club’s founding was covered in a local newspaper on March 17, 1890.

A report was sent back to Dundee by a Spanish correspondent in Seville recording the formation of the club. And it wasn’t until the article was found that archivists could be assured Seville was the oldest Spanish football club.

Grant Millar, of Dundee online company Brightsolid, who has been in touch with a Spanish researcher, said: ‘According to the article, which has been hidden for 123 years, the club was formed on January 25, 1890, by a group of young British residents in Seville.

‘In order to make this constitution legal, they decided first to play under association rules, secondly to bear the word “football” within its name and, thirdly, to elect office bearers. The reason why this report was published in the Dundee Courier is probably due to the fact that, at that time, tonnes of Seville oranges were loaded on steamships, travelling from Seville to Dundee for the manufacture of marmalade.’

Mr Millar said members of the club included a D Thomson who played in a match around Christmas 1890 and a Robert Thomson who acted as a referee.

He believes the pair may have been related to the DC Thomson publishing family of Dundee.

More recently, the club’s Scottish links continued when they were managed in 1986 by former Rangers boss Jock Wallace, and in 2007 they won the UEFA Cup by beating fellow Spaniards Espanyol on penalties at Hampden Park in Glasgow.

Metro UK. September, 25 2012

 

Published by Metro UK

Stephen Deal