El Rojo commemorates its founding, which took place in August 1904. However, 1/1/1905 also figures in its history. How the events happened.
Alexander Fabbri
04/08/2024 10:37 am
Independiente fans pointed at the leaders in the preview
Argentine football has a large majority of clubs that have been celebrating their 100th anniversary for a few years now, and others that are just reaching that long-awaited celebration. At the same time, several of those that made history are preparing to celebrate their first 120 with “fanfare and fanfare,” as they used to say.
The problem – if we take it as such – is that there are many cases in which the date does not coincide with the official founding day of the club. There are plenty of examples: Quilmes changed its founding date by ten years (from 1897 to 1887) without conclusive evidence, River did it from 1904 to 1901 and other entities have tried – in recent times – to celebrate anniversaries prior to those that were established.
It is worth explaining that in those remote times, the teenagers and young people who gave life to the football teams, in almost all cases did so on a day that does not coincide with the one that was officially established when they joined the Argentine Football Association, which only Spanish-ized its name in 1906.
Independiente established January 1, 1905 as its natural origin, the same day, but five years before Vélez Sarsfield, to cite an example. River, Platense, Colón and Defensores de Belgrano appear as having been founded on May 25 between 1901 and 1906. Huracán was first created in 1903 and then became effective in 1908, Banfield brings together two different years of the same group of people, in 1896 and 1904. It is clear that national holidays, the beginning of a year or Christmas Eve (Rosario Central in 1889) and the first of a month in other times were days set, in their great majority, to generalize something very felt, although they were hardly the original date. That August 4, 1904 is the one that is to be celebrated now, 120 years later.
The notable historian Claudio Keblaitis published books about Independiente, called Alma Roja, which cover the first steps of the founding group in 1904 until the end of the 1940 season. No one like Keblaitis has been able to investigate the origins of the institution and from his first book – which covers the period 1904-1914 – he explains that in the A la Ciudad de Londres store a group of cadets and packers had put together a team to play against teams from other stores and factories, given the football explosion in Buenos Aires. These boys, almost all of them minors, were displaced from the primitive Maipo-Banfield and decided to put together another team.
Encouraged by Marcelo Degiorgi and his brother Rosendo, FJ Ipart, Luis and Nicolás Bassou, Fernando Aizpuru, Antonio and Nicolás Cabana, decided to meet on August 4, 1904, after work hours. They did so in a warehouse, located at Victoria 584. Years later, Victoria Street would become Hipólito Yrigoyen Street and today that address number is part of the Palace of the Legislature of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
Independiente fans against the management after the draw with San Lorenzo
Keblaitis says that “in that warehouse, which also functioned as a bowling alley or bar, the eight original members debated the fate of this spin-off, two opposing positions, some of those present suggested joining the Atlanta Athletic Club, a team of neighbours known to the boys and which was then in formation, like them. Oral legend has it that, at the time of the debate over the name, one of them insisted on the annexation to Atlanta, but another of the speakers angrily reproached ‘What Atlanta, not even eight quarters! We have to have an independent club’ and Rosendo Degiorgi shouted that that was the name, Independiente. Needless to say, the motion was approved by acclamation.”
The boys formed a Provisional Committee, bought a ball and a rubber stamp for the “documentation” of the brand new club and received the support of seventeen new members, thus establishing the core of the 25 founding members. From that moment on they would be called Independiente Football Club, with a white shirt and blue trim.
The first meeting was called for Sunday, January 1, 1905, at 329 Esmeralda Street, third floor. Keblaitis writes that “the meeting was frustrated due to the poor attendance and the poor condition of those present, affected by the intense festivities of the recent New Year. Nevertheless, it was resolved by the minority to clearly establish that day as the founding date of the Independiente Football Club and another meeting was called for the following March 17.” That is how things went.
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