Juan Astorquia

Juan José Astorquia Landabaso (June 1876 – 23 October 1905), also known as Juanito Astorquia, was a Spanish footballer who played as a forward for Athletic Club. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the amateur beginnings of Athletic Club from Bilbao, having been the fundamental head behind the foundation of the club in 1898 and its official establishment in 1901, and then serving as the club's first captain until 1904 and as its second president between 1902 and 1903.

Under Astorquia's leadership, Athletic Club became a dominant team on the national level, captaining the Basque club to triumphs at the 1902 Copa de la Coronación, which was the club's first piece of silverware, and then to two Copa del Rey titles in 1903 and 1904, contributing decisively in all of these victories. A lover of sports, he was also a fan of velocipedism.

Early life and education
Juan Astorquia was born in Bilbao in June 1876. He was the oldest of seven siblings, including Luis, Angel, Maria Teresa (1892–1974), and Ricardo (1895–1975). Being the son of a well-off family of merchants in Bilbao, Astorquia was sent to Britain to complete his studies, doing so in a Catholic college in Manchester. During his four years there, he developed a deep interest in football, becoming one of the best players in his school since he had great skill in dominating the ball and in dribbles, two virtues that were highly regarded in a time when kicking reigned.

Early career
In 1896, the 20-year-old Astorquia returned to Bilbao and brought with him his newly-founded business knowledge as well as his newly-founded passion for football, and like many other Balbainos, he began to play football games in the Hippodrome of Lamiako, which at the time was the home of organized football in Biscay. At first, he wanted to join the Bilbao FC of Carlos Castellanos, becoming an important piece when it came to arranging meetings between them and the workers from the Nervión shipyards. For reasons that are unknown, however, Astorquia did not get along with some members of Bilbao FC and left the club, perhaps because he felt annoyed by the massive presence of Britons in its ranks as he wanted to be a member of a club with a majority of local members, or was simply eager to lead a football society by himself where he would have a greater role. Either way, he went on to become the figurehead of a seven-man committee that founded what would later become Bilbao's first official football club.

A lover of sports, Astorquia was also a fan of gymnastics, joining the Gimnásio Zamacois (founded in 1879), and of cycling, joining the Bilbao Velocipedista Club (founded in 1885).

Foundation of Athletic
In 1898, Astorquia, together with six fellow Basque football enthusiasts and Lamiako usuals who also belonged to the Gimnásio Zamacois, decided to open a football practice center in Lamiako. Gimnásio Zamacois, the largest sports center in Bilbao at that time, and the Velocipedista Club, where Astorquia maintained friendships due to his militancy as a member, inevitably became the main sources of recruitment, and thus, once added a sufficient number of volunteers, he began to arrange and organize matches of the game they loved against the British workers, which were contested on Sundays in Lamiako. Unlike Bilbao FC, this group of football pioneers was almost entirely made of players from Biscay, with a mix of newcomers from the world of cycling.

Although it was founded in 1898, it was not until February 1901, in a meeting held at the Café García, that Astorquia's group, now larger, began conversations to become an official football club, so a commission made up of Astorquia, Goiri, and José Maria Barquín was formed to prepare regulations for a football society, which were approved on 11 June. The entity's board was subsequently elected, with Astorquia being appointed the team's captain, while Alfred Mills, the only foreigner to be part of the board and also a cyclist, was named the vice-captain. Since the figure of coach as we know it today did not exist at the time, it was Astorquia and Mills, as captains of the clubs, who were in charge of making up the line-ups and dictating the tactics to be followed.

After obtaining the permission of the Civil Government, the club was officially established on 5 September 1901, in the infamous meeting held at Café García, in which a group of 33 football pioneers, including Astorquia and his brother, Luis, signed the documents to make it official, and hence Athletic Club was born.

First games and first goals
At the end of 1901, the two most important clubs in the city were Athletic Club and Bilbao Football Club, thus developing a rivalry between them, playing several friendlies at the Hippodrome of Lamiako, which the two teams shared since there were hardly any fields in Bilbao. Astorquia was one of the most important figures in what is now regarded as one of the first football rivalries in Spain, one that helped turn football into a mass phenomenon in Bilbao since their duels aroused great expectation.

Astorquia stood out as a great goal scorer, netting three goals in three matches, including the opening goal in a 1–1 draw on 1 December 1901, and then, after missing a match on 15 December due to constipation; and without him, his side lost for the first time (0–2); he netted a brace on 19 January 1902 to help his side to a 4–2 win, which not only marked Athletic's first victory over Bilbao FC in four matches, but also the first time that a paid match was held in Biscay, since they charged a ticket price of 30 cents of a peseta.

Club Bizcaya
In 1902, Astorquia became the club's second president, taking over from Luis Márquez, who had been elected on 11 June 1901. Under Astorquia's presidency, the two rivals agreed to join the best players of each club to play two games against the Bordeaux-based side Burdigala. This temporary merge became known as Club Bizcaya, and Astorquia was the only Spanish player in Bizcaya's attacking quintet, with Bilbao FC's English forwards (Langford, Dyer, Butwell and Evans) making out the rest.

On 9 March 1902, Astorquia played in the first-ever line-up of the Bizcaya team against Burdigala, helping his side to a 0–2 win in France, the first time a Bilbao team played on foreign territory, and three weeks later, on 31 March 1902, he was again in Bizcaya's starting XI for the return fixture at home, the first visit by a foreign team to Bilbao. Lamiako had its record attendance on that day and Astorquia rose to the occasion with a hat-trick to help his side to a 7–0 win over the French side. These two victories made the French newspaper L'Auto-Vélo give Bizcaya the title of "best team in Spain".

Copa de la Coronacion
Together with Alejandro de la Sota, Armand Cazeaux, Dyer and Evans, he was part of the Bizcaya team that participated in the 1902 Copa de la Coronacion, the first national championship disputed in Spain and the forerunner for the Copa del Rey. Astorquia captained his team in the tournament and he led by example, netting three goals, one in each game he played: the quarter-finals against Club Español (5–1), in the semifinals against New Foot-Ball Club (8–1), and the opening goal of the final in a 2–1 win over Joan Gamper's FC Barcelona, thus contributing decisively in Athletic's very first piece of silverware. According to some sources, Astorquia netted the opening goal of the game against Español, thus being the author of the very first goal in Copa del Rey history, but due to the little statistical rigor that the newspapers had at that time, the exact order of the goals is unknown, and this feat is more often attributed to Español's Ángel Ponz, while Athletic's first competitive goal is attributed to either Astorquia or Evans.

Astorquia used Bizcaya's successful campaign at the Copa de la Coronación to convince the newly-elected president of Bilbao FC Luis Arana of how beneficial and necessary it was to merge the two clubs, and in order to further convince them of the merger, he promised to pass down the torch of the presidency to a Bilbao FC associate, Enrique Careaga. Once the negotiations had begun, the sudden death of Castellanos in 1903, at the age of just 22, precipitated the outcome in a few days, concluding the final agreement on 24 March when both presidents signed the merger in which Bilbao FC was dissolved and all of its remaining members and associates were officially absorbed by Athletic, and the side that emerged from the unification was called Athletic Club de Bilbao. Between 1901 and 1903, he was simultaneously Athletic's founder, player, captain (equivalent to coach), and president, performing all four tasks expertly.

Copa del Rey triumphs
Still under Astorquia's presidency and captaincy, and together with la Sota, Cazeaux, and Evans, the newly created Athletic team won the first-ever Copa del Rey in 1903, in which he also contributed decisively, netting a brace in the semifinals against Espanyol (4–0), and then in the final, Athletic found themselves 2–0 down to Madrid FC at half-time, but after a crucial harangue by Astorquia during the break, the Athletic players came out with renewed spirits and managed to pull off a comeback and win the title with a 3–2 victory over the home team in front of 5,000 spectators. Since the figure of coach as we know it today did not exist at the time, Astorquia felt obliged to take a step forward and gathered the players around him in the Biscayan locker room to give them a harangue. Its exact content is unknown since his words or screams were not recorded, but according to the chroniclers of the time it ended with a war cry: Por el Athletic y por Bilbao ("For Athletic and for Bilbao"). With two goals in two matches, he was the tournament's joint-top scorer alongside teammate de la Sota and Madrid's Armando Giralt.

Astorquia was also part of the team that won the 1904 Copa del Rey, which Athletic won without playing a single match since their opponents failed to turn up. At the eve of the final in Madrid, the newly arrived Bilbao players were asked for a few days of extension in order to decide the Madrid champion, but Astorquia did not even flinch, and protected by the battered regulations, the people of Bilbao showed up at eleven in the morning at the Español de Madrid field to play the final and eventually became champions due to the opponent's failure to appear. Then they sang the alirón and returned home.

Between 1902 and 1904, Astorquia played five competitive matches, scoring five goals (Athletic Bilbao counts the matches played by Bizcaya as its own). Although little is known about his playing style and personality inside the pitch, the few photographs of the Athletic squads provide good hints without the risk of misunderstanding since in almost all of them, he always appears with the ball either in his hands or buried between his legs, and while his teammates pose smiling, clueless or expectant, waiting for the photographer to activate his camera, Astorquia offers an imposing image with a challenging gaze, and likewise, he was the one with the most imposing and best-kept mustache, with those semicircles that rose from the corner of his lips that gave him an aristocratic look. A simple glance is enough to recognize him as the leader of the team.

Refereeing career
Astorquia participated in the 1903 Copa del Rey as both a player and a referee, winning the cup as the former and overseeing one match as the latter, a semifinal clash between Madrid FC and RCD Espanyol, which ended in a 4–1 win to the former.

Death
Juanito Astorquia died on 23 October 1905 at the age of just 29, and like Pichichi, who also died in his youth, both became legends of Basque football. Athletic has its registered office at Calle Nueva, on the first floor, above the Donostiarra café.

Legacy
Despite being the first great figure of Athletic, the information that has remained about him is very scarce; just a handful of biographical details that are "certainly not enough to do justice to such a fundamental character in the club's history".

Honours

 * Copa de la Coronación: 1902
 * Copa del Rey 1903, 1904