Details
Originally, three teams were to participate, one for each region. The newly formed Madrid Football Federation, who organized the competition for the first time (the previous tournament was organized by Madrid CF), invited Athletic Bilbao representing Biscay and Espanyol of Barcelona representing Catalonia. Madrid was to be represented by the winner of a preliminary round between Club Español de Madrid and Madrid-Moderno (a merger of Madrid CF and Moderno). The three teams were to contest the cup in a round-robin format.
Before the tournament, Espanyol, unhappy with the competition system, announced they would not travel to Madrid. Then two more teams from Madrid, Moncloa FC and Iberia Football Club, were admitted into the competition, forcing a change to the schedule.
As a result, the four Madrid teams were scheduled to play a single-elimination tournament to decide their representative for the Copa del Rey final against the automatically qualified Athletic Bilbao. [1]
The competition started on 13 March 1904, but on 19 March the first problems arose: the semi-final qualifying match between Club Español de Madrid and Madrid-Moderno ended in 5–5 draw. The captains of both teams agreed not to play extra-time, but failed to reach an agreement on when they should replay the match. Español wanted to play the next day, but Madrid-Moderno refused, citing the rules of the tournament which stated that a replay could not be played less than 48 hours after the previous game.
The next day, Club Español, went to replay the match, but Madrid-Moderno failed to appear. The regional federation, whose president Ceferino Avecilla also happened to be president of Español de Madrid, ruled in favour of Español, and they were declared winners on default.
While the Cup final was originally scheduled for 26 March, the inclusion of Moncloa and Iberia into the tournament at the last minute necessitated an extra qualifying game and delayed the final. On 27 March, Español and Moncloa faced one another, and Español were winning 1–0 when their defender Hermúa was injured, being diagnosed with a broken tibia and fibula. The referee then suspended the match, at which point Español claimed the victory. During a meeting of the Madrid Association of Foot-ball Clubs, the president of the organization, Avecilla, proposed to accept this claim, but as he was also the chairman of the claimant club, his proposal was rejected. To resolve this conflict, a lottery was held, which favoured Español, and named them as finalists.
But Español had not won their regional games: they had tied one game (winning the replay after their opponent failed to appear) and the other had been abandoned, which led Athletic to lodge a formal complaint. For various reasons, the Madrid Association were unable to quickly resolve the matter, and also faced a rush of players from the Basque club to return to their occupations: the Association decided to scratch the final and award the cup to Athletic as defending champions. [1]
Club Español de Madrid was a Spanish football club based in Madrid. The club was originally formed in 1901 after a conflict between Sky Football members caused some of them to leave and create a new club. Español de Madrid collapsed in the summer of 1903, but was refounded a few months later by players from a split of Madrid FC. Español de Madrid was subsequently the Campeonato Regional Centro champions in both 1904 and 1909, and reached three Copa del Rey finals in 1904, 1909 and 1910, which all ended in losses.
The 1902–03 season was Madrid Football Club's 1st season in existence. The club played some friendly matches against local clubs. Madrid FC also played their first match outside of the Community of Madrid against Club Español de Fútbol in Barcelona. The club also participated in the inaugural editions of the Copa del Rey and the Campeonato de Madrid.
The 1903–04 season was Madrid Football Club's 2nd season in existence. The club played some friendly matches against local clubs. Madrid FC also played their second-ever match outside of the Community of Madrid against Athletic Bilbao in Bilbao.
The Campeonato Regional Centro was an annual association football competition for clubs based primarily in the Castile region of Spain, including the Community of Madrid, during the first half of the 20th century. The competition was organised by the Madrid Football Federation and first held in 1903 as the Campeonato de Madrid and renamed as the Campeonato Regional de Madrid for the 1906–13 seasons. The Royal Spanish Football Federation, founded on 29 September 1913, began organising the competition from 1913. It was called the Campeonato Regional Centro between 1913 and 1931, the Campeonato Regional Mancomunado from 1932 to 1936, and the Campeonato Regional del Centro during its final season in 1939–40.
The Copa del Rey 1903 was the first official staging of the Copa del Rey, the Spanish football cup competition. It followed the 1902 Copa de la Coronación, held to celebrate the coronation of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, which was won by Club Vizcaya de Bilbao and given to them permanently.
The Copa del Rey 1905 was the 3rd staging of the Copa del Rey, the Spanish football cup competition.
The Copa del Rey 1910 comprised two different competitions held the same year.
The Copa del Rey 1911 was the 10th staging of the Copa del Rey, the Spanish football cup competition. It started on 9 April 1911, and concluded on 15 April 1911, with the final, held at the Josaleta Stadium in Getxo, in which Athletic Bilbao lifted the trophy for the 5th time ever with a 3–1 victory over CD Español.
The 1904 Copa del Rey final was the second final of the Copa del Rey. It was supposed to be played in 1904 in Madrid. This edition was notable for its chaotic development and the fact that Athletic Bilbao won the trophy without playing a game.
The 1905 Copa del Rey Final was the third final of the Copa del Rey, the Spanish football cup competition. The match took place on 18 April 1905 at the Hipódromo, Madrid. The match was contested by Athletic Bilbao and Madrid FC. Madrid was awarded the trophy for the first time after defeating Athletic Bilbao 1–0 with Manuel Prast netting the only goal of the match.
The 1910 Copa del Rey Final (FECF) was the 9th final of the Spanish cup competition, the Copa del Rey. It was one of two rival Cup competitions played in that year due to disagreements between the reigning champion of the tournament, Club Ciclista de San Sebastián, and some of the clubs invited.
Tiro del Pichón, also known as Campo del Retiro (Retiro), or Campo de la Rana, was the first football pitch of Real Madrid between 1901 and 1902. They were not an official club at that time, playing friendly games on this field. Meetings were held there until 1903, the date the entity moved to the Campo de Jorge Juan.
Football is the most popular sport, both in terms of participants and spectators, in Madrid. Madrid is the only city that had derby matches in the UEFA Champions League finals.
Armando Giralt Iduate was a Cuban-born Spanish footballer who played as a forward for Madrid FC, Club Español de Madrid and RCD Espanyol. He was a member of some of the oldest football entities in Spain, such as Sky Football, Madrid Football Club and the Club Deportivo Español, being a founding member of the first two together with his older brothers José and Mario, who were also footballers.
The Moncloa Football Club was a football team based in Madrid, Spain, which was founded in April 1902 and dissolved in 1907 after being absorbed by Madrid FC. Moncloa FC was only the third football club to have been founded in the Spanish capital, and together with Madrid FC, it was the only team who participated in the first three editions of the Centro championship, achieving two back-to-back runner-up finishes in 1903–04 and 1904–05, losing the respective finals to Español de Madrid and Madrid FC. Despite its early success, however, the club was subjected to an early disappearance in 1907.
The 1903 Campeonato de Madrid (English: 1903 Madrid Championship was the 1st staging of the Regional Championship of Madrid, formed to designate the champion of the region. It was organized by the recently established Madrid Football Federation, and the different football teams that made up the downtown area were invited to participate in what was the first official football competition in the capital. The competition was held at the Hipódromo de la Castellana between 15 November and its last match was played on 27 December, although there were two further matches scheduled for January which never were held. The tournament was won by Moderno FC, narrowly beating Madrid FC by just one point.
Ceferino Rodríguez Alonso de Avecilla was a Spanish writer, dramatist, sports journalist and football executive. A prolific and restless journalist, Avecilla wrote countless chronicles about the most important issues of his time, as well as several novels and plays. He was an enthusiastic sportsman in his youth, being the founder of the magazines Revista de Sport (1903), Mundo Sportivo (1903) and Gaceta del Sport (1904), and he is especially recognized for having been president of the Madrid Association of Foot-ball Clubs (1904), the first football federation in the capital. In addition to his journalistic, literature, and football work, he was also a lawyer.
The Madrid Association of Foot-ball Clubs was a football association responsible for the administration of football in Madrid between 1902 and 1904. It was the first football association founded in the capital. AMCF was one of the most important entities in the amateur beginnings of Spanish football, organizing the first-ever tournament disputed exclusively by Madrid clubs at the end of 1902 as well as the infamous 1904 Copa del Rey, which was notable for its chaotic development and the fact that Athletic Bilbao won the trophy without playing a single game, being this what ultimately led to the federation's demise.
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