CF México
The Club de Fútbol México , or CF México for short , was a Mexican football club that was founded in 1910 and dissolved in 1934. The club, created with the help of Jorge Gómez De Parada , was the first local club in a league that had previously been determined by foreign nationalities. He was once champion and twice cup winner of Mexico . His home ground was the sports field of the Mexico Country Club in San Pedro de los Pinos , a then still legally independent suburb of Mexico City .
history
For the first eight years, the Primera Fuerza , the amateur football championship in Mexico, introduced in 1902/03 , was a purely British affair. During this time, only teams that were founded by the English or - as in the case of Orizaba AC , which only played for the first two years - were mainly founded by Scots took part in the game. After all, at least the Pachuca AC soon had more and more Mexican players, who had made up the majority since 1915. Nevertheless, the Pachuca AC from the state of Hidalgo was considered an English club in the early days and there was also the fact that football in the heart of the country, in Mexico City, was a purely English affair in the first few years since the introduction of the Primera Fuerza. Because until then only the English teams from the Reforma Club , the British FC , which was in the process of dissolution, and the Mexico Cricket Club , which had withdrawn in 1908, had participated in the capital . Between 1910 and 1912 part of the Spanish-speaking population developed the ambition to also want to participate in the Mexican national championship. This project resulted in the establishment of the Club de Fútbol México among the local population in 1910 and in the establishment of the Club España in the Spanish colony in 1912 . Its founding member Francisco Arias had previously played for CF México.
The aim of founding the Club de Fútbol México was that a team consisting mainly of Mexicans would represent the locals in a league previously determined by foreign immigrants. After the club had only occupied the last place in the first participation in a championship tournament in the 1910/11 season , he withdrew the team from the league, only to return a year later with a team reinforced by a few selected English players. In fact, the club had apparently found the right mix of local and English players, because it won the championship straight away in its first season in 1912/13.
The fact that many of the British working in Mexico received draft letters for the British army in order to fight in the First World War led to a bloodletting of the British clubs, which also affected CF México. A loss that the club was never able to make up for, even though it managed to retain extremely important and extremely popular local players. Perhaps the most glamorous of these players was their goalkeeper Cirilo Roa , who regularly came out with a pitcher of pulque that he used to drink during the game.
But at the same time the team developed into a scandalous troop - also due to some instability of their extroverted goalkeeper - which attracted attention not only because of their name and their red jerseys, but above all because of the fact that they repeatedly sparked tumults on the lawn. Through these performances, however, the team lost the affection and support of the people in the poorer areas of the city.
But at first the disrespectful demeanor of the players had incited the audience to imitate them. So it came in May 1917 at a game between México and España to one of the first mass riots. The "red mob of México" never tired of insulting the opposing fans to the utmost, to which the Spaniards replied with "muera México" (Mexico crazy). Then the “Reds” (the fans of Club México, whose team traditionally wore red jerseys) began to throw stones at the Spaniards. Some even hit the Spaniards with wooden slats and a few shots could be heard. When the "red mob" had brought its opponent completely under pressure, mounted police intervened and drove the crowd apart with their sabers held up. In those days it was really hot on Mexico's soccer fields.
After the club was runner-up again in 1916 and won the local cup competition in 1914 and 1921 , it fell back more and more into insignificance. Because, in the meantime, other local teams had also been founded - such as Club América , which in 1917/18 sent the first team consisting entirely of Mexicans into the race and won the championship four times in a row between 1925 and 1928 , but also CF Atlante and Necaxa who both won championship honors in the 1930s - CF México, with its elitist origins, who had fallen behind in sport and was less rooted in the people, was hardly able to mobilize spectators. Therefore, he withdrew his team at the end of the 1933/34 season from play.
Champions team
The championship team for the 1912/13 season consisted of the following players: Bartolomé Vargas Lugo , Sabino Morales, George Griffen, Albert Smith, Carlos Miranda, Diez Vivanco, Carlos Troncoso, Carlos Elguero, Peter Little, Jorge Gómez De Parada , Abigail Quiroz, Serafín Cerón . (Master coach was the club's founder Antonio Sierra)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Xavier Bañuelos Rentería: Balón a tierra (1896-1932) (Editorial Clío, México 1998) p. 58
- ↑ ibid., P. 17
- ↑ ibid., P. 55
- ↑ La historia de nuestro futbol mexicano (Spanish)