Arthur Leask
Personal information
Full name Arthur Leask Mace
Date of birth (1880-06-20)20 June 1880
Place of birth Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Date of death 4 August 1967(1967-08-04) (aged 87)
Place of death Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Position(s) Forward
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1901–1903 FC Barcelona 5 (3)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Arthur Leask Mace (20 June 1880 – 4 August 1967) was a Spanish footballer of English descent who played as a forward for FC Barcelona between 1901 and 1903.[1] He is best known for being the referee of Barça's first-ever game on 8 December 1899.[2] In addition to football he was also an outstanding tennis player, winning the men's doubles in the first International Tennis Competition in Spain in 1903, partnering with Ernest Witty.[3]

Biography

Born in Barcelona in 1880, Leask first became interested in football and tennis during his university years, when he would regularly meet up with a group of English friends. In 1899, the same year in which the Swiss Joan Gamper founded FC Barcelona, several English families, the Witty (Arthur, Ernest), the Parsons (John and William), Shields (John and Thomas), Bartows, and himself, founded the Lawn Tennis Club Barcelona, which later become Real Club de Tenis Barcelona.[4]

On 8 December 1899, he went down in history as the referee of FC Barcelona's first-ever game, played at the Velódromo de la Bonanova against the city's English colony known in Catalonia as Team Anglès.[2] The game ended in a 1–0 victory for the English, courtesy of a goal from Arthur Witty.

Despite refereeing Barça first game in 1899, he only began playing for the club two years later, in 1901, being part of the team that won the club's first-ever piece of silverware, the 1901–02 Copa Macaya, netting a hat-tricks in the tournament's final matchday on 23 March 1902 to help his side to a 15–0 victory over Català FC.[5] The Copa Macaya is now recognized as the first Catalan championship. Those three goals were the only ones he scored for the club.

Together with the likes of Udo Steinberg, Ernest Witty, and Alfonso Macaya, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the first international tennis tournament played in Spain in 1903. This Executive Committee, among other things, approved that the tournament would have five events: men's singles and pairs, mixed pairs, and men's singles and pairs with the advantages system.[3] Arthur Leask was one of the great figures of the tournament, winning the men's doubles partnering with Ernest Witty.[3]

Honours

FC Barcelona

References

  1. 1 2 "Arthur Leask Mace stats". players.fcbarcelona.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2022. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  2. 1 2 "Barça partidos de 1899" [Barça matches of 1899]. www.webdelcule.com (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 20 November 2022. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "El primer torneo de tenis internacional disputado en España" [The first international tennis tournament played in Spain]. www.lavanguardia.com (in Spanish). 21 March 2020. Archived from the original on 26 October 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
  4. ↑ "Real Club de Tenis de Barcelona". 6 December 2018. Archived from the original on 2018-12-06. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
  5. ↑ "Barça Rewind: The first ever title". www.fcbarcelona.com. 23 March 2020. Archived from the original on 19 September 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
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