Aguilas football museum, memoirs from a 120-year football tradition

Águilas Sporting Club was one of the first in Spain and dominated the sport in Murcia for 20 years

The town of Águilas is not immediately associated with footballing success, but in fact it has one of the oldest traditions in the whole of Spain in the sport, the first club having been founded here by members of the British mining and railway construction community in the 1890s.

It was 1896 when Sporting Club Aguileño (or Águilas Sporting Club) came into existence, reportedly after the arrival of Ginés García Abellán, who was studying English in the UK, and John Gray Watson, a native of Edinburgh. They brought with them a football, and the club they formed was the dominant team in the Region of Murcia during the decade of the 1900s, winning all of the 26 matches they played and conceding no goals. When the club disappeared in 1907 it was due to the lack of rivals!

This was followed by the birth of Club Deportivo Aguileño, which also remained unbeaten until 1917 but folded due to financial problems in 1921, and when the Murcia football federation was founded in 1924 no team from Águilas was included.

However, the following year Águilas Fútbol Club (later Águilas Club de Fútbol) emerged, and this time Águilas remained with regular representation until 2010, when this club also ran into financial difficulties. A prompt replacement was created in the form of Águilas FC, currently in Group 13 of the national third division.

Without ever achieving glory on the national stage, then, Águilas boasts a proud tradition in football – “El Rubial” is the oldest pitch still in use in Spain - and this is reflected in the existence of a football museum. The museum opened on 11^th December 1996 to commemorate the anniversary of the first club in the town, and the exhibits include a reproduction of the original strip, a 19^th century whistle and the fliers advertising some of the first fixtures played.

The football museum in Águilas opens from 17.00 to 20.00 from Monday to Saturday.

Address: Calle Muñoz Calero, 22

Telephone: 968 413906

Admission is free of charge

For more local information including news and events visit the home page of Águilas Today.