What have to do with Sevilla FC, the Scottish poet Robert Burns, San Francisco Javier, the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell and the Spanish politician of the Eduardo Dato restoration? Well, there is a connection, which will discover who is curious to read this cartoon that follows …
With Scottish politics in a kind of suspension status to the regional elections next year, one of the main articles in the country of the last days has been that the City of Seville has appointed a new roundabout in the district of Nervión and La Vera of the Sánchez-Pizjuán stadium, the result of the construction works of the tram, in honor of a Scotch named Edward Farquharson Johnston, who was born in the mid-nineteenth century in the town of Elgin (famous for his wool fabrics), He died in London already entered the XX and was, among many other things, British Vice -Consul in the Andalusian city.
Polyphacetic man, British Vice -Consul was also in Seville and arbitrated the first game in Spain
On January 25, 1890, he met with a few compatriots (there was an important British community) to celebrate the “Burns night”, a tribute to the poet Robert Burns on the day of his birth, and after a few beers, a few Fine and some tapas, founded Sevilla Football Club, with Johnston as president, Hugh Maccoll as Captain and Isaiah White Méndez as secretary. The latter sent, shortly after, a letter to his namesake in the recreational of Huelva (established one year earlier by another Scottish, doctor William Alexander Mackay, for relief of the Anglo -Saxon who worked in the Riotinto mining basin), proposing the celebration of the first football match in Spain, which was played on March 8 at the Tablada Hippodrome (today a military base). The Sevillists won, who made places, 2-0, and Ritson scored the first goal consisting of the annals.
Read too
The roundabout that has been dedicated to Johnston is at the crossroads of San Francisco Javier and Eduardo Dato avenues. And it happens that the Galician politician, three times Prime Minister of Alfonso XIII and four times president of Congress, was also killed on March 8 (1921) next to the door of Alcalá (Madrid).
The founder of Sevilla studied at the same school, at Elgin, which was the inventor of the phone, Alexander Graham Bell, and after finishing the studies, his mother plugged him in the shipping company Robert Mcandrew and Company, which among other things was dedicated To export bitter oranges from Seville to Dundee (Scotland) to make the famous jam. Soon he began to move in political circles and local high society, being appointed British Vice -Consul in the city. The team’s foundation caught him a little older Referees most named of the 19th century. Edward F. Johnston stayed in Spain until 1911, married, had three children and eventually settled in London, where he died. In the will – according to the historians of the Andalusian club -, he left fifty pounds sterling of the time to the guardian of the family home, another fifty to his cook, and the salary of one year to all the service staff.
For a long time, it consisted 1905 (when the administrative processing concluded and the statutes were incorporated) as the date of birth of Sevilla. But, a decade ago, the story was reviewed and UEFA accepted the fifteen years ago (now the 135th anniversary has just been fulfilled), when, in the “Night of Burns”, some Scottish who had a spent pipe to Way of the Guadalquivir took some fine.
This is how the story is written
Hugh Maccoll, the Scotsman who was the first captain of Sevilla FC
The alignment of Sevilla FC in the match against Huelva of March 1890 seems, by the names, that of a British team. The captain – also directed at the founding night in the middle of smoke and alcohol – was Hugh Maccoll, an engineer who had worked at the Belfast shipyards where the Titanic and was employed (like other original members of the team) by the Portilla & White Foundry. He stayed in the Andalusian city for a lot of less time than Johnston (six years, until 1895), and died suddenly in 1915 at the Central Hotel of the Glasgow station.