How Britain Brought Football to Chile
British expats in Valparaíso kicked off the Chilean passion for soccer.
1895
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
British expats in Valparaíso kicked off the Chilean passion for soccer.
1895
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
On June 19th 1895, Chilean football acquired its first governing body. It was the first major step towards Chile’s immensely popular football league, and it was Chileans of British descent who were behind it.
IN 1909, David Foxley Newton founded a football club in Cerro Alegre, Valparaíso, and named it ‘Everton’ after the prestigious team from Liverpool which had recently toured Argentina.*
It was by no means a first. British merchants had established a trading base in Valparaíso in 1826, and since then other British-heritage Chileans had started sporting clubs: Mackay and Sutherland FC met on school playing fields in the same Valparaíso suburb in 1882, and in 1889 David Scott started a soccer team at the Badminton cricket club.
The first game between sides from two different cities, Scott’s Valparaíso and Santiago Club, and the first international, against an Argentinian side composed entirely of British nationals, both kicked off in 1893.
Encouraged by Chilean football’s first governing body, formed in 1895, and aided by footballs imported from England, club after club sprang up with names such as Wanderers, Rangers, Morning Star, and El English, forming the basis of today’s passionate Chilean Football League.**
Valparaíso’s importance comes from its position at the Pacific end of the Straits of Magellan, which allow ships in the Atlantic to cross the American Continent without braving the wild seas of Chile’s Cape Horn to the south.
** Contrary to appearances, top-flight side O’Higgins in Rancagua is named in honour not of a club founder but of Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme (1778–1842), a landowner of Spanish and Irish descent who is considered one of the Founding Fathers of Chile.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
In which city did the first Chilean football clubs spring up?
Valparaíso, home to a large British population.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
British merchants came to Valparaíso in 1826. Their descendants founded Chile’s first football clubs. Many clubs had English-sounding names.