110 years have passed since the mattress team debuted with the rojiblanca. At that time it was called Athletic Club de Madrid. The premiere took place on January 22, 1911 in a match of the Rodríguez Arzuaga Cup, which had the Spanish Gymnastic Society as its rival. Ramón de Cárdenas, Roque Allende, Celso Rodríguez Arango, Julián Ruete, Pedro Mandiola, Juan Elorduy, Luis Belaunde, Manuel Garnica, Antonio Palacios and Alejandro Smith were the privileged ones.
Until that day, Athletic Club de Madrid had used the blue and white colors inherited from Athletic Club de Bilbao. “It was a trip of the player Juan Elorduy to England, at Christmas 1909, which led to the change of colors for both teams. Taking advantage of his vacations, he was commissioned by the Bilbao board, the parent company of our club, to buy some T-shirts that were made expressly for footballers. Those that had been worn until then were made by hand on many occasions by the players’ own families. In addition, those worn by Blackburn Rovers would serve as the blue and white colors match. But Juan Elorduy left the order for the last day and in London could not find the necessary number of Blackburn Rovers jerseys to fill the order, finally, before embarking in Southampton for Bilbao he made one last attempt. He also did not find the number of necessary Blackburn Rovers T-shirts in the shops of the port city. The ones that could be seen everywhere were the red-and-white shirts worn by Southampton FC. They were made up of vertical red-and-white stripes and had a cord that closed the neck. He bought 50 shirts and embarked with them for Bilbao. But the Bilbao board of directors, not being in charge, only kept 25, “explains Atlético.
