Surprising Story of the Life of a Spanish Football Pioneer

Published by The Isle of Man Today on May, 17 2016.

When island-based Liverpool fans gather to watch their team in tomorrow night’s Europa League final against Spain’s oldest club, it’s likely that none will be aware of the role played in founding opponents Sevilla FC by a man buried just a mile or two up the road at Braddan Cemetery.

Liverpool Football Club supporters are famous for their love of history.

Stories of matches, players and characters resonate through a club synonymous with success during its 123-year history.

And the people who follow its progress each season around the world carry encyclopedic knowledge of glories past, Jurgen Klopp’s team of today and the history of the game in general.

But tomorrow night, when fans gather in pubs and bars in Douglas to watch their team in action ahead of the Europa League final against Spain’s oldest club, it’s likely that none will be aware of the role played in founding opponents Sevilla FC by a successful Scottish engineer and businessman buried just a mile or two up the road in a modest grave at Braddan Cemetery.

Gilbert Reid Pollock was born on August 24, 1865, in Neilston, a village near Glasgow.

After completing his studies he began gaining a reputation as an accomplished young engineer and, after achieving enough professional experience, moved to Seville towards the end of the 1880s.

Spain’s prominent southern fluvial port was booming during this period, with manufacturing and shipping firms owned and managed by British workers playing their part in the prosperity, and Pollock was employed at the Portilla White foundry, the most important iron works in the city at the time. A strong commercial relationship with the United Kingdom led to a large British enclave forming and, once in the Andalusian capital, Pollock established connections not only with these people – many of them workers and directors of the shipping company MacAndrews, the Seville Water Works and the Portilla White foundry – but also with many locals.

According to a report published in The Dundee Courier and Argus on March 17, 1890, a group of young men, both British and Spanish, with Pollock among them, met in January 25 that year in one of the city’s cafes to celebrate Burns Night.

Emulating the formation of the English Football Association in the Freemasons’ Tavern in Great Queen Street, London, in 1863, these men decided to form Spain’s first club solely devoted to football.

The first president of the newly-formed Sevilla Football Club was Elgin man Edward Farquharson Johnston, British vice-consul in Seville and co-owner of MacAndrews shipping company, while Glaswegian Hugh MacColl, technical manager at the Portilla White foundry, was designated first captain and Isaias White Jr, who was born in Seville and the only son of one of the owners of the foundry, was chosen as the club’s first secretary.

The members soon set about arranging the club’s first fixture and, knowing about the existence of a recreation club in Huelva, to the east of Seville, secretary White sent a letter challenging them to play a football match, ‘under Association Rules’.

The two teams went head-to-head in a match which is now regarded as the first to be played on Spanish soil on March 8, 1890.

The aforementioned article published by The Dundee Courier and Argus in March 17, 1890, described in full detail the founding of the club and the first match, which was played over two halves of 35 minutes in a ‘steady downpour’ in front of ‘twelve dozen spectators’. Sevilla FC won 2-0 through goals by Ritson and ‘Clown Yugles’, a player so-called due to his appearance on the pitch in ‘night dress’.

The article revealed the celebrations that followed involved the sides sharing ‘a sumptuous dinner, part Spanish, part French, with a slight inkling of British fare thrown in’.

What happened next has led to Pollock’s name being seared into Spanish football history as, following the success of the first match, the clubs decided to play a return fixture three weeks later, this time in Huelva.

In front of a crowd of between 400 and 500, Pollock scored after 25 minutes to give Sevilla FC a 1-0 lead and will forever be credited with scoring the first ever away goal on Spanish soil.

However, the historic strike wasn’t to be the winner as, with Huelva’s side fortified by ‘some athletes from the British colony of Rio-Tinto’ according to The Dundee Courier and Argus on April 7, 1890, the hosts fought back to win 2-1.

Looking back on events from a 21^st century perspective, it’s clear Pollock was at the centre of a moment of huge sporting significance. But with football at that time being simply a pastime used to foster teamwork among a hard-working community, the engineer pressed ahead with what turned out to be a remarkable career.

In 1895, Sevilla’s first captain Hugh MacColl returned to the UK after seven years abroad and settled in Sunderland. Alongside business partner John T. Jameson, he reopened the engine works at Wreath Quay, on the north side of the River Wear, near Wearmouth Bridge.

The partners adapted the premises for the business of marine engine and boiler builders and repairers, but Jameson died suddenly, aged 35, in July 1896, leaving a widow and four young children.

Pollock, who was working in Manchester by this time, moved north to join his former Portilla White colleague and Sevilla FC teammate, and they went on to establish the hugely successful MacColl and Pollock firm at Wreath Quay.

M&P traded for more than 30 years, employing 500 men at its peak. The last engine was built in 1930, with the firm dealing only with repairs until it closed in 1935.

During the company’s early years, both men were prominent members of the prestigious Wearside Golf Club, but never lost their passion for football, a sport which they promoted among their workers at Wreath Quay, where engineers, platers and boilermakers formed different teams to compete against each other or against teams belonging to other Wearside firms.

M&P’s engine works were very close to the Sunderland AFC stadium at a time when the club was competing at the top of the First Division, today’s Premier League, and which had secured league titles in 1892, 1893 and 1895.

SAFC enjoyed close links to some of the owners of the most important engineering companies on the Wear, who provided not only a job for many of the club’s players but also financial support for the club. It was somewhat inevitable then, when in 1908 Sevilla FC decided to acquire red and white football shirts, that the Spanish club should turn to Sunderland for help. 

John Wood, one of the British members of the club and captain of the SS Cordova, a steam ship based in Sunderland, was put in charge of bringing football shirts back to Seville, and former members MacColl and Pollock were happy to oblige with providing the kit.

Sevilla FC’s players have proudly worn the red and white colours ever since, and stripes were incorporated into the crest in 1921. This season has seen the club return to the stripes once more.

MacColl died in 1915, but Pollock continued managing the company until it closed in 1935, before retiring to the Isle of Man.

It remains unclear when he married Annie Blackwell, but according to an obituary published in the Sunderland Echo on May 27, 1954, the couple shared a son and three daughters.

Widowed some years earlier, Pollock was living at the Fort Anne Hotel in Douglas when he died in 1954, aged 88, and was buried in Braddan Cemetery, where his grave can still be seen today.

His legacy in founding Sevilla FC and scoring the first away goal in Spanish football remain an important part of the club’s rich history, with historians and enthusiasts ensuring the founders’ lives and achievements are recorded for future generations.

And with their rich sense of history and identity, Liverpool FC supporters should certainly be able to offer a nod of appreciation to the part Pollock played in the nascent game when the teams face each in tomorrow night’s final in Swiss capital Basel.