The backyard of the La Callealtera bar had more atmosphere than the interior of the establishment. There the kids trained in soccer and also the fighting cocks, who fought loud and crowded battles with the incentive of betting. One day in 1929, Manuel González Lavín had the idea of transferring the bets from the cockfights he raised to the soccer league that debuted that year with ten teams. This is how the pool was born, in that place – also known as Casa Sota – at number 22 Alta Street in Santander, in an old fishing neighborhood portrayed in the novels of the writer José María de Pereda.
The invention is attributed to Manuel, one of the three González Lavín brothers – known as the sons of Sota – who ran this bar located in front of the Church of La Consolación where the Cantabrian polygrapher Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo was baptized. Right next door, a few numbers up, the oldest house in Santander survives, a stone building from the 18th century. Callealtera occupied the ground floor of another three-story house with an attic, built in 1920, which is still standing, on a street that in those years was known by another name: Menéndez Luarca.
Around 1929, a group of friends took to gambling over Sunday coffee trying to guess the results of the league matches, which were arriving in dribs and drabs at the bar. In fact, sometimes the news reached directly from those who had come to the field to see Racing de Santander play. This Sunday routine added more people who discussed football predictions at the bar, over wine and cigarettes. It was the 1928-29 season and, among others, Larrínaga, Breñosa, Santiuste, Solá, Hernández, Luisito Álvarez, Óscar and Zubieta played for Racing. A local team that, at that time, competed in the honor division alongside Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Club de Bilbao, Real Sociedad de San Sebastián, Real Unión Club de Irún, Europa de Barcelona, Español, Arenas of Getxo and Atlético de Madrid.
One of the participants had an idea to materialize the football betting system that was in the bar owner’s head. Francisco Peral, accountant at the La Cruz Blanca beer factory, had the idea of starting a fundraiser that would be given to whoever was closest to the right one. To do this, he made a table with boxes that, the day before, each person filled in with the results they predicted. It was decided that each bet would be one peseta. At the end of the 1929 league, there were already a hundred people participating in the pool. Over the years, between 10,000 and 12,000 pesetas were distributed in prizes, which gives an idea of the extraordinary acceptance of the initiative.
Organizing committee
The Santander Quiniela was initially called ‘Football Bag’ – effectively the proceeds were put in a bag and given to the winner – and it was a success due to the seriousness and rigor with which it was developed: no one put their hand in it. the box. A commission was created which included, in addition to Peral himself, Manuel Escudero, Manuel Cos and Antonio Balaguer, who played for Racing. As a previous step, González Lavín drafted a regulation with rules for awarding prizes that resolved, among other issues, situations such as postponed or suspended matches.
The owner of the establishment also prepared the first ticket for the pool. A sheet of paper that was filled out with the results and deposited in a ballot box in the bar, where it was kept safe. Afterwards, after the matches, a commission headed by Peral classified the successes of the bets. It was an operation that lasted up to 12 to 15 hours because the system was complicated: in addition to guessing who won the game, you also had to guess the number of goals scored by each team.
16 points were awarded for an exact result, 5 points for a correct match and one point was deducted for errors in goals. Therefore, checking the results was a notoriously tedious task. A local journalist who signs as ‘Lapice’ explained in a newspaper of the time the reaction of the pool player: “If he goes over 40 there is an illusion, if he reaches 50 there is hope and if he goes over 60 he already believes a true fact. and he goes to the address of the football exchange (La Callealtera) and, landing as close as possible to Peral, he dedicates himself to seeing them coming and taking a good look at the decennial piles that the accountant makes.”
If he passes 40 there is an illusion, if he reaches 50 there is hope and if he passes 60 he already believes a true fact and goes to the address of the football exchange (La Callealtera) and landing as close to Peral as possible. He spends his time watching them coming and paying close attention to the ten-year piles that the accountant makes.
Pencil
— La Region newspaper in 1932
The curious thing is that the bar did not receive any money: all the pesetas that were bet were distributed entirely in the prizes. “Peral, the tireless one, does not stop giving scares for a moment and on each of those sheets where the forecasts are printed he puts a figure in the margin and very often a comment, putting all five senses into it,” the newspaper La explains to its readers. Region of February 3, 1932. The chronicle of the recount is written on a Sunday in which 8,813 ballots were cast by lot. The press gave all kinds of details about the winners of the day: “The winning pools, tied at 55 points, belong, the one in Torrelavega to Don Antonio Estévez, a member of the Gimnástica bar, and the one in Santander to Don Rafael Pérez, an employee of the Mercantile Bank”.
The initiative of the La Callealtera bar soon became an unexpected success that surprised even its own promoters. That game attracted more bettors, Racing fans above all, who in the following weeks came to the premises daily to participate in the lucky tickets. The idea of the new ‘Football Stock Exchange’ spread outside Cantabria and from Bilbao, Barcelona, San Sebastián and Madrid they sent delegations to the Santander bar to become interested in the system, which spread to other cities.
The teacher from the town of La Nestosa was right with a crazy prediction ticket: 12-1 Athletic de Bilbao-Barcelona
Women, who at that time did not usually frequent bars as much as men, began to enter Casa Sota to try their luck filling out their pools. Letters began to arrive from the towns with tickets to place bets. On one occasion, a letter was received in the bar from the teacher of the town of La Nestosa – in the press of the time it appears separately -, Salvadora Cartámil, with a peseta in stamps and some results that, to those who opened the envelope, They seemed absolutely crazy to them. He predicted a 12-1 for Athletic Bilbao-Barcelona. “Well, you see, he got all the matches and goals right, and he took home almost 11,000 pesetas,” Gelín González Sota recalled in an interview for the local press in 1964.
Contribution to the Treasury
The Santander pools began to move so much money that they began to pay contributions to the Treasury in 1931. According to receipts from the time, they earned 403 pesetas per week in the early days. Apparently, first a percentage of 5 and then 10% was paid. In times of great need, everyone wanted to do the pool. It was the excitement of the week for citizens of all walks of life. The sailors who stopped in Santander or the Mexicans who frequented the bar to buy fighting cocks that they took to their country. They also couldn’t resist filling out a ticket.
The official name of ‘Football Bag’ did not catch on among bettors, who began to use the term ‘Quíntuple’, since in that first league five games were played in the First Division. A baptism that evolved into the current pool, a name already used in 1931 by the Cantabrian newspaper La Región. Other bars in Santander, such as El Progreso or Bar Montañés, copied the idea and launched their own ventures.
The arrival of the Civil War interrupted the famous pool. From 1945 onwards it was banned by the Franco dictatorship, although Peral himself made the ‘Football Stock Exchange’ available to the then Sanatorio de Santa Clotilde de Santander under the umbrella of charity. The ‘mutual sports betting’ gaming system was managed by the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God.
The Bar La Callealtera, now empty, was open until a few decades ago. In the 70s, cigarette makers from the nearby Tabacalera factory, also closed today, had breakfast and snacks there. While it was in operation it had a certain museum feel because the first paper pools, already yellowed by the passage of time, and documents with betting dates, regulations, letters from bettors and lists with the names of those who carried out the counting were kept. Today, on the stone façade you can still guess, very worn, the nickname of the bar where the pool was born, the result of the ingenuity of some people from Santander: Casa Sota. They invented the betting system and also the name.
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