User:PhilippineFootballHistoryMaker/sandbox/YCO Athletic Club

The Yco Painters football club were the multi-titled Filipino football team of the YCO Athletic Club that was active from the late 1930s to 1960s in the now-defunct Manila Football League (MFL). YCO Athletic Club was founded by businessman and sportsman Manuel “Manolo” Elizalde and owned under his company Elizalde & Co., Inc., manufacturers of YCO floor wax and paints.

Before World War II, football hit its peak in the Philippines, with up to 26,000 paying spectators packing the Rizal Memorial football stadium. In the 1920s to 1930s Manila became a popular destination of visiting European squads. European sides often visited and played with local elevens like Turba Salvaje, YCO Athletic Club, Nomads, Casino, and school squads like the University of Santo Tomas often played in floodlit fields after school and office hours, they could always be counted on to give the foreign booters a run for their money. The creation of the Manila Football League, featuring most if not all of the country’s top clubs, in 1936 marked another significant event in the sport’s local annals. YCO Athletic Club were one of the pre-war era football dynasty in the Philippines, having dominated Manila Football League during the early 1940s. Yco's reign in the Manila Football League came just before it was shelved because of the war, with the Elizalde shinbusters taking three straight crowns from 1939 to 1941. But once the Japanese had been defeated by the Americans, Yco resumed its winning ways, bagging the Lobregat Cup in 1951 and 1955. Yco also captured the Manila Football League crown one more time in 1954 before the Lions went on their record seven-year winning streak, and then won both the National Men's Open Championship and Lobregat Cup titles in 1962. Among the stars for the Painters then, of course, were their own basketball stalwart Ed Ocampo, Enrique Beech, Joey Villareal, Johnny Romualdez, Fernando Alvarez, Angelo Dauden, the father-son tandem of Eddie Llamas Sr. and Jr., Eddie Lagdameo, and at one point, Eddie Pacheco himself.

Then came a gradual decline of Philippine football in the 1960s. The YCO franchise later ended due to the financial difficulties faced by its parent, Elizalde & Co., Inc.

Rivalry with De la Salle Football Club
During the pre-war era, YCO Athletic Club was lead by legendary deadly striker Enrique Beech. Beech played varsity football for Letran and San Beda then joined Yco and later Turba Salvaje which was a national champion for at least six years. In his prime, Beech was considered the country’s best football player, showing an uncanny ability to control the ball with either foot. But rivals De La Salle has its very own, high scoring forward named Alberto "cash register" De Larrazabal, he became famous for his "hat trick" in the championship match against YCO, ca.1937-38. De La Salle had to win the game in order to retain the championship because in their previous game with Letran, both teams ended up with a tie. Albert scored the second goal about three minutes before the end of the game and scored the third goal thirty seconds before the final whistle, giving La Salle the championship. Yco and De La Salle alternated at winning three straight Manila Football League championships before the Second World War broke out in 1941, forcing the new league to suspend its competitions from 1942 to 1946.

The Elizaldes' legacy
Don Manolo Elizalde, like Chito Calvo and Leo Prieto, was also known more for his involvement in basketball mainly because of his legendary Yco Painters basketball club, which won a record seven straight National Open championships and battled arch-rival Ysmael Steel in basketball's greatest rivalry in the '60s before the advent of the Crispa-Toyota feud a decade later. But Don Manolo, along with Don Andres Soriano, was also one of football's biggest patrons and threw his full support to the game and its various programs before and after the war through his Elizalde conglomerate. His conglomerate's football team, the Yco Athletic Club, was one of the top teams from the '30s to the '50s and would win four titles in the Manila Football League, then the premier football league in the country.

Notable players

 * Fernando "Nando," Alvarez ✝
 * Enrique Beech ✝
 * Mariano Cui
 * Angelo Dauden
 * Eduardo "Eddie" Lagdameo
 * Eddie Llamas Sr. ✝
 * Eddie Llamas Jr.
 * Edgardo "Ed" Ocampo ✝
 * Eduardo Pacheco ✝
 * Juan Miguel "Johnny" Romualdez
 * Federico Veloso
 * Alberto Villareal
 * Joey Villareal
 * Danilo Wieneke

Coaches

 * Fernando "Nando," Alvarez ✝