Recreativo de Huelva

History

Background

Huelva was introduced to football by the British employees of the Rio Tinto Company Limited (RTCL), who began to arrive in 1873 to work at the copper mines of Rio Tinto. Huelva thus became the home to a vast British colony, among whom a certain William Bice stood out, as he was the one who began organizing the first "kick-abouts" between the club's members, which were possibly the very first kick to a football ball on Spanish soil. This colony eventually gave birth to a club in 1878, the Rio Tinto English Club (known in Huelva as Club Inglés Bella Vista), where the mine workers played their favorite sports, such as cricket, rugby, and football. The first president of this club was the Scot John Sutherland Mackay, the newly-arrived company doctor. There are reports of football games between Rio Tinto and Huelva as early as 1882, but these teams were never officially established, so there is no legal record of their existence.

Rio Tinto FC was the catalyst of the Sociedad de Juego de Pelota (), which was founded in 1884 by Dr. William Alexander Mackay, the brother of John Sutherland, who was a lover of sports and thus wanted to use physical exercise to improve the health of his patients. He began organizing football and cricket games, usually between his compatriots living in Riotinto and those crews of the British ships, which were held in a large area of marshes filled with flooded soil opposite the Gas Factory run by fellow Scotsman Charles Wilson Adam, who also played in some cricket matches himself.

The earliest known example of this dates dating to March 1888, when the club played football and cricket matches against the sailors of a merchant ship called Jane Cory who had just arrived in port; Mackay even invited a Spaniard Ildefonso Martínez to play. Eventually, in the late 1880s, the local population began gathering there to watch this curious sport, which soon gained followers among the local youth, and as they became familiar with its rules, some of them asked Mackay to participate, which he happily accepted, as he did not conceive of his recreational club as something exclusive to the British colony. Ildefonso Martínez, José García Almansa, Alfonso Le Bourg, and some others, thus became the first Spaniards to play football.

Foundation and first matches

After a few years of consolidating these sports practices, Mackay and Adam decided to take a further step, so on 18 December 1889, they were among the seven men who founded Huelva Recreation Club, thus becoming the first-ever football club in Spain, although it was originally founded as a sports club that provided physical recreation for the Rio Tinto mineworkers to improve their health. The remaining five founding members were Edward Palin, Alfred Gough, Gavin Speirs, and the only two Spaniards: Pedro Nolasco de Soto and José Muñoz Pérez, both of whom had studied in Britain and thus had a great knowledge of the English language, with Nolasco having previous experience as a director of a sailing club, while Muñoz had a position within the local press. Even though Mackay was the fundamental head behind the club's creation, it was Adam who was elected as the club's first-ever president since he was the eldest of the group and owner of the land where the games were played. This position was then ratified as such at the meeting of 23 December 1889, in which four more members were added for a total of 11; the 27-year-old Speirs, an engineer, was named vice-president, and Palin was named secretary, while Mackay was appointed only as a member of the club's first board of directors.

After Recreativo de Huelva, Sevilla FC is the next-oldest club in Spain, having been founded just a month later, on 25 January 1890, by Isaias White and Edward Farquharson Johnston, the British vice-consul of Seville, and unlike the Huelva clubs, Sevilla was solely devoted to football, so many considered Spain's first football club.

Following the success of the first match, the clubs decided to play a return fixture in Huelva just three weeks later, on 7 April 1890, in front of a crowd of 500, and even though Sevilla scored the opening goal via Gilbert Pollock, thus becoming the first-ever player to score an away goal on Spanish soil, Huelva managed to fight back to win 2–1, partly because they had been fortified by "some athletes from the British colony of Rio-Tinto".

1890s

The Recreation Club demonstrated an organizational capacity that was out of the ordinary for a sports club of that time, playing many more matches against Sevilla and the Club de Río Tinto in the early 1890s, fielding the likes of Wakelin, Alcock, James Reeves, and captain Almansa, who scored a late winner against Sevilla in February 1892. In 1892, Mackay created the club's first crest, the blue and white heart, because those were the colors of the Mackay clan crest, the flags of Scotland and Huelva, and even Lybster FC, his hometown club.

In that same year, Mackay and Adam formed the club's subcommittee charged with planning and supervising the works of the so-called Campo del Velódromo on the plot of land located on the Seville road opposite the Hotel Colon, which was the first sports venue built in Spain for the practice of football,

Charles Adam held the club's presidency from its foundation on 18 December 1889 until his resignation on 29 November 1896, being replaced by Mackay, who, in turn, held this position for nearly three decades until 1924, except for a brief period in 1903.

First cups

In 1891, most of the founders and promoters of Recreativo, including Adam, founded an organization called "Seamen's Institute", which was meant to provide shelter, entertainment, and company to the English sailors who anchored their ships at the port of Huelva for relatively long periods while they waited for the mineral and finished loading it onto the ships. In 1903, after many years as secretary, Muñoz became the vice-president of Recreativo, and later that year, his proposal to create an annual football tournament between Recreativo and the British sailors of the Seamen's Institute was approved at the board meeting held on 9 December 1903. Muñoz decided to follow the footsteps of the Copa del Rey, which had been inaugurated earlier that year with a cup donated by Alfonso XIII, and also ordered a cup made of silver in London, with the first match taking place on 2 January 1904, and being won by the British. It was only two weeks later, on 20 November, that Recreativo finally won this cup, and despite some indications that the club had lifted the Copa de la Raza in 1893 and the Copa Heráldica in 1898, it can be reliably and based on strict documentary evidence that the Copa Seamen's Institute was the first time that a captain of Recreativo lifted a trophy; it was William Alcock, near the Anglican Chapel of the "Seamen's Institute".

After declining invitations in previous years due to financial problems, Recreativo decided to participate in the 1906 edition of the Copa del Rey, playing two matches at the Hipódromo de la Castellana against Athletic Club and Madrid FC (currently known as Athletic Bilbao and Madrid FC), both ending in losses. The Huelva squad that played in this tournament included the likes of Antonio Tellechea, Tomás Estrada, Robert Geoghegham, and William Waterston.

On 1 January 1911, Recreativo achieved its third consecutive victory over the Seamen's (12–0), and in doing so, the Copa Muñoz became the definitive property of Huelva, and it still is the oldest trophy kept by Recreativo in its museum. In the first half of the 1910s, two of the Pérez de Guzmán brothers (Manuel and José), along with Tomás Estrada, played a crucial role in helping the team win three non-official Andalusian regional championships, which Recreativo itself organized, and the Copa Centenario de las Cortes de Cádiz in 1912, beating Español de Cádiz 3–0 in the final. During this period, Estrada was everything at Recreativo: player, captain, referee, and manager, and also correspondent in Huelva for the weekly Madrid Sport.

Huelva also became the first Spanish side to defeat a Portuguese team, winning against Sporting Clube de Portugal. In 1940, it first reached Segunda División, only lasting however one year and not returning until 1957. Since 1965, the team also began hosting the Trofeo Colombino.

Later years

In 1977–78, led by, amongst others, former Real Madrid youth graduate Hipólito Rincón, Recreativo first gained promotion to the top flight. After just one season, it returned to level two, staying there until 1990, the year of a Segunda División B relegation.

In 1999–2000, Recreativo were due to be relegated to the third division, but were redeemed when Atlético Madrid descended into the second and thus their reserves were ejected. With a new stadium and the appointment of Lucas Alcaraz as manager, and the club returned to the top flight for the first time in 23 years on 19 May 2002 with a 2–1 home win over fellow Andalusians Xerez CD. After this one season at the top, the team was immediately relegated back. However, in the same campaign, it reached the final of the Copa del Rey for the first time, being defeated by Mallorca 0–3 in Elche.

In 2005–06, after beating Numancia on 4 June 2006, Marcelino García Toral's Recreativo mathematically secured promotion with two matches left to be played. Ahead of the new season, the club bought players including France youth international striker Florent Sinama Pongolle from Liverpool, and young winger Santi Cazorla from Villarreal CF, with a budget of only €15 million. The club finished eighth in the table, at 54 points, a best-ever, and made headlines with a 3–0 win against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

Recre narrowly avoided relegation the following season, and in 2008–09, one win in its last 15 matches led to it coming in last place and returning to Segunda after three years. Overspending in aim of returning to the top flight led to debts. In May 2021, due to restructuring of the Spanish football league system, the club was relegated two tiers to the fifth level for the first time in its history. Journalist Damián Ortiz of the Diario de Huelva called the entire squad "bastards without honour" and "a black mark on the history of Recreativo de Huelva". In April 2022, Recre achieved promoted back to fourth division. In June 2023, Recre achieved second consecutive promoted to third division after beating Cacereño in last playoff.

Season-by-season record

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• 5 seasons in La Liga
• 38 seasons in Segunda División
• 2 seasons in Primera Federación
• 14 seasons in Segunda División B
• 2 seasons in Segunda Federación
• 23 seasons in Tercera División
• 1 season in Tercera División RFEF
• 2 seasons in Divisiones Regionales

Current squad

Youth players

Main article: Recreativo de Huelva B

Coaches

Presidents

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Honours

• Tercera División: 1946–47, 1950–51, 1956–57, 1958–59, 1960–61, 1968–69, 1973–74
• Segunda División: 2005–06
• Segunda División B: 2018-19 ( Group 4 champion )
• Tercera Federación: 2021–22 ( Group 10 champion )

International players

Notes

References

References

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6. (10 September 2024). "100 años del fallecimiento de Charles Adam, y 100 años del fin del doctor Mackay al frente del Club".
7. (27 December 2019). "La historia de los fundadores Charles Adam, Pedro Nolasco de Soto y José Muñoz".
8. (19 December 2014). "Recreativo Huelva's anniversary celebration has British and Irish roots".
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14. (11 July 2021). "La Copa Seamen's".
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16. (13 January 2000). "Spain - Cup 1906". [[RSSSF]].
17. "Squad of Recreativo de Huelva 1905-06 King's Cup".
18. (11 April 2016). "Reseña histórica: La Copa Centenario".
19. (11 February 2017). "El Decano cedió a Camilo Bel Pérez al Sevilla en 1905".
20. (1 June 2015). "El Decano se vuelve a estrellar en El Sadar como hace 15 años". Marca.
21. (23 February 2016). "'It's a real matter of faith:' Life as a Recreativo Huelva supporter". The Guardian.
22. (4 May 2007). "Recreativo land Sinama-Pongolle". BBC Sport.
23. (21 December 2006). "Recreativo rip up the form book, and Real with it". The Guardian.
24. (26 June 2007). "Marcelino, nuevo entrenador del Racing de Santander". Cadena SER.
25. (23 March 2016). "Recreativo de Huelva: Spain's oldest club on the brink of extinction". BBC Sport.
26. (9 May 2021). "El Recreativo de Huelva desciende sin jugar". Huelva Información.
27. (9 May 2021). "¡Bajad, bastardos sin honor! (1-2)". Diario de Huelva.
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