It’s a familiar part of football history to every fan: Victorian and Edwardian Brits start up small football clubs to pass the idle hours in foreign climes, and before you can say A.C.Milan or Grasshopper Club Zurich…
…or, in the case of Juventus, a club started by natives turned to good old Blighty for help in their difficulties.
Another excellent post. So interesting all these football stories.
I am led to believe that the reason Bilbao play in red and white stripes is because it was started by a couple of blokes from Sunderland. Alreet!
If this is to be believed, you might be right!
Or possibly Southampton – I’ve heard stories of both. There are a few more examples of such things, though I can’t remember whom.
OT, James, but does this unlikely article contain anything thatinterests you?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2007/06/02/nosplit/mfwhit02.xml
“Galatasaray” is actually derived from the Turkish for “Celtic” (or the Greek for “milk” but let’s not get into that). The Turkish League is quite interesting historically as the popularity of football more or less exactly mirrors the decline of the Ottoman Empire; it was banned, but the sports clubs started playing it anyway, then a league was set up in Istanbul by some passing Brits, then for a short while the league was filled out by a lot of British Army teams, then there wasn’t an Ottoman Empire any more.
Dearieme – I see what you mean, and yes: thanks!
Daniel, that sounds extremely interesting – and I love that “started playing it anyway”: something similar happened in Wilhelmine Germany, albeit in the face of a social rather than legal distrust.