George Cockram
Cockram (in the second row, the fifth from the left) in 1893
Personal information
Full name George Peterson Cockram
Date of birth (1870-08-21)21 August 1870
Place of birth Bathgate, Scotland
Date of death 25 April 1929(1929-04-25) (aged 58)
Place of death Unknown
Position(s) Midfielder and Forward
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1892–1894 Barcelona Football Club +2 (0)
1895 Torelló Foot-ball Association 2 (4)
1901–1902 Bilbao FC +3 (0)
1902–1904 Athletic Club 2 (0)
Total +9 (4)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

George Peterson Cockram, sometimes referred to as George Cochran (21 August 1870 – 25 April 1929), was a Scottish football pioneer who played for some of the first Catalan and Basque clubs in history, most notably Athletic Club (now known as Athletic Bilbao) between 1902 and 1904.[1][2]

Although little has been recorded of his life, he was one of the most important figures in the amateur beginnings of football in Spain, playing a significant role in promoting football in Catalonia and then Bilbao. In Catalonia, he played as a forward for several experimental teams in the 1890s such as Barcelona Football Club and Torelló Foot-ball Association, and in Bilbao, he played as a midfielder for some of the earliest Basque clubs in existence in the early 1900s such as Bilbao FC and Athletic Club, winning the 1903 Copa del Rey with the latter.[3]

Footballing career

Barcelona Football Club

Cockram was born in Bathgate on 21 August 1870.[1][2] At some point in the early 1890s, the 20-year-old Cockram arrived in Barcelona. Work reasons bring him, like many other Britons who moved to the Catalan capital. In 1892, he meet James Reeves, who was recruiting football enthusiasts to create a well-organized football club, and Cockram joined him, having been impressed by his entrepreneurial spirit.[4] Together with Reeves and some other pioneers in the city, such as Henry W. Brown, Henry Wood, the Morris brothers (Samuel, Enrique, and Miguel) and Alberto Serra, they formed Barcelona Football Club in late 1892, and Cockram was crucial in its success.

Cockram appears in the oldest photo of a football team in Spain. He can be seen in the second row, the fifth from the left, in-between Dumsday and Reeves.

This entity held the first known football match in the city, which was held at Hippodrome of Can Tunis on 25 December 1892. It remains unclear if he played in this match. However, he did play on 12 March 1893, in the historic match between a red team captained by Reeves and a Blue team led by himself, guiding his team to a 2–1 victory with two goals from Catalans (Figueras and Barrié).[4] Cockram appears in what is regarded to be the oldest photograph of a football team in Spain: these two sides before the match on 12 March, in which he is sitting alongside the captain of the rival team, Reeves.[4] In 1894, a conflict between the club's members caused the entity to split into two groups, one headed by Reeves and the other by Cockram and William MacAndrews, which led to the creation of Sociedad de Foot-Ball de Barcelona and Torelló Foot-ball Association respectively. In order to form the latter, Cockram's group had to move to Torelló just so they could find and gather enough players to assemble two teams to start practicing football.

Torelló Foot-ball Association

Apart from training matches (Blues vs Reds), the Torelló society only played two matches in the 1894–95 season, both against Barcelona. The first match took place on 24 March 1895 and ended in an 8–3 away loss, and the result was attributed to the fact that Torelló played against the sun and against the wind, and that their five forwards (or runners as the local press of the time called them) had trouble getting through Barcelona's strong and robust defenders.[5] Torelló's goals were netted by Cochran, Englis and A. Tong.[6] The second match was held in Torelló on 14 April, and according to the chronicles of the time, they disputed this so-called "challenge" as an act of revenge, and this time victory smiled at those from Torelló with a 5–3 win.[7] Remarkably, Cockram netted a hat-trick in the first half to give a 3–0 lead to his side, in an eventual 5–3 victory.[7]

When James Reeves returned to the United Kingdom in the autumn of 1895, the Barcelona Football Society began to decline and around 1896 it seems to disappear. The Torelló society followed them to the grave.[4] However, it is known that many of the players of the Barcelona and Torelló societies continued to practice football through other societies such as the Barcelona Velocipedistas Society, which used to organize football games and other typically English Sports, but such arrangements also seem to be gone by the end of 1896.[8] At some point in the late 1890s, Cockram moved to Basque Country, presumably due to work reasons, living in Portugalete for a few years.[3]

Bilbao Football Club

In 1901, together with fellow Britons George Langford, William Dyer, and Walter Evans, the 31-year-old Cockram was one of the British residents in Bilbao who joined the recently established Bilbao Football Club.[9] At the end of 1901, the two most important clubs in the city were Bilbao FC and Athletic Club (now known as Athletic Bilbao), thus sparking a rivalry between the two sides, who played several friendlies against each other at the Hippodrome of Lamiako.[10] Cockram thus participated 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.[10][11] On 19 January 1902, Cockram played in the very first paid match held in Biscay, since the public was charged with a ticket price of 30 cents of a peseta. Bilbao FC lost 2–4.[10][11]

Athletic Club

In 1903, Bilbao FC collapsed and its remaining members were officially absorbed by Athletic Club. Cockram played two competitive matches for Athletic between 1903 and 1904,[1] including the 1903 Copa del Rey Final, in which he played alongside the likes of Alejandro de la Sota, fellow British Walter Evans, and club founders Juan Astorquia and Eduardo Montejo, the latter having also lived in Portugalete.[3][12][13] Cockram was at the heart of a 3–2 comeback win over Madrid FC (now known as Real Madrid) in the final.[12][13] He 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.[3][14]

Death

He died on 25 April 1929, at the age of 58.[1][2]

Honours

Athletic Club

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "George P. Cockram - Player: Player". www.athletic-club.eus. Archived from the original on 20 November 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 "Cochran, George Paterson Cochran - Footballer". www.bdfutbol.com. Archived from the original on 20 November 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Noticias de Pedro Larrañaga, Eduardo Montejo y Crokran, en los origenes del futbol vizcaino" [News about Pedro Larrañaga, Eduardo Montejo and Crokran, at the origins of Biscayan football] (in Spanish). 26 December 2017. Archived from the original on 26 December 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Barcelona Cricket Club: els primers en jugar a futbol" [Barcelona Cricket Club: the first to play football]. memoriesfutbolcatala.com (in Spanish). 25 December 2020. Archived from the original on 11 August 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  5. ↑ "Barcelona 8–3 Torelló". hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com (in Spanish). La Vanguardia. 27 March 1895. p. 5. Archived from the original on 20 November 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  6. ↑ "Barcelona 8–3 Torelló". hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com (in Spanish). La Vanguardia. 27 March 1895. p. 6. Archived from the original on 29 September 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  7. 1 2 "Torelló 5–3 Barcelona". hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com (in Spanish). La Vanguardia. 17 April 1895. Archived from the original on 4 October 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  8. ↑ "La Sociedad de Football de Barcelona de 1894 y el Foot-ball Club Barcelona de 1899" [The Barcelona Football Society of 1894 and the Foot-ball Club Barcelona of 1899] (in Spanish). CIHEFE. 17 January 2010. Archived from the original on 5 February 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  9. ↑ "El Club Atleta de los Astilleros del Nervión (1889-1894) y el Athletic Club de Bilbao (1901-)" [The Athletic Club of the Nervión Shipyards (1889-1894) and the Athletic Club of Bilbao (1901-)] (in Spanish). CIHEFE. 17 May 2021. Archived from the original on 30 October 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  10. 1 2 3 "118 años de la primera rivalidad" [118 years since the first rivalry]. www.aupaathletic.com (in Spanish). 7 November 2019. Archived from the original on 21 July 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  11. 1 2 "Athletic Club contra Bilbao Football Club (1902)" [Athletic Club against Bilbao Football Club (1902)]. memoriasdelfutbolvasco.wordpress.com (in Spanish). 7 March 2014. Archived from the original on 16 October 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  12. 1 2 "Spain - Cup 1903". RSSSF. 13 January 2000. Archived from the original on 21 July 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  13. 1 2 "Copa del Rey / Spanish Cup 1903". www.linguasport.com. Archived from the original on 14 July 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  14. ↑ "Spain - Cup 1904". RSSSF. 13 January 2000. Archived from the original on 9 July 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
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