Spanish giants’ debt to man from Caithness

Inverness-born author Rab MacWilliam is celebrating the Caithness roots of Spanish football in his newly-released book.

Life in La Liga: The Story of Spanish Club Football charts the rise of the game in Spain.

The origins of Spanish football can be traced back to Lybster’s William Alexander Mackay, who co-founded the country’s first football team, Recreativo de Huelva, in 1889.

MacWilliam’s mother was born in Lybster and he regularly enjoyed holidays in the Caithness village during his childhood, sparking his interest in Mackay’s story.

MacWilliam said:

“William Mackay was born in 1860 in Lybster, which was a herring port, but he went off to Edinburgh University to study medicine before becoming a doctor for the Rio Tinto company.

“They were mining copper at Huelva, which is on the Atlantic coast near Cadiz.

“He was very keen on football. He kicked a ball about and he noticed the Spanish kids were kicking about a football.

“He and some of his colleagues decided to form a team called Recreativo de Huelva. They were the first official team registered as a football club under FA rules in Spain.

“I thought it was so interesting that a man from a wee place like Lybster could start up a club.”

The claim that Mackay instigated the first Spanish football club does not go unchallenged, as MacWilliam added: “Bilbao were playing but they hadn’t formed until two years after Huelva.

“Gimnastic de Tarragona formed a sports club but they didn’t get round to playing football until the 20th Century.”