Written by Fergus Dowd

As the rain pounds off the pavement, Jane Crowe walks along Dublin’s empty streets, the pandemic has hit the Emerald Isle hard. For 339 days, Jane has followed the same beaten track; around the back of the Debenhams Store on Henry St. there, she stands in the loading bay trying to find shelter. Last April, Jane, and her colleagues’ retail working life came to a shuddering end as Debenhams closed all stores nationwide.

Since the workers, mainly women, have been on 24-hr pickets, their daily norm has changed from selling clothes to stopping trucks taking the stock from stores. In the corner of the loading bay ‘Strongbow,’ the dog is wrapped in a green and white-collar, Iain Campbell from the Real Betis supporters club Dublin drops off a scarf, while Jane rustles through her bag for the green and white jersey. In an era of billionaire owners, it’s the ordinary football fans where the workers have found support; some has come from Spain.

The shirt plucked from the bag is a ‘Beti’ replica shirt from 1935, the year that Real Betis became kings of Spain.
Two miles down the road stands no. 87 Fitzroy Avenue where ‘the General’ as O’Connell was known, lived and where he honed his football skills. Dubliner Patrick O’Connell once said, ‘Seville is a city where the people live like it is their last days’.

He would know under his leadership; Betis found the promised land pipping Madrid by a point to win their only La Liga title in 1935. Incredibly though, O’Connell was the first man to cross the divide switch from Verde Blanco to Roja… from the Estadio Benito Villamarín to the Estadio de Nervión. In Seville, the football club you choose defines your identity; it is who you are and what your family represents, it divides, and it conquers all in the city.

It was the 25th of January 1890 ‘Burns Night’ and in Scotland, while they celebrated with the annual fish soup.
In Seville, a group of Scottish students were tinkering with the idea of a football team. The idea became a reality; the clubs founding document would be published on St. Patrick’s Day in the Dundee Courier; it read:

‘Some six weeks ago, a few enthusiastic young residents of British origin met in one of the cáfes for the purpose of considering a proposal that we should start an Athletic Association, the want of exercise being greatly felt by the majority of us.’

Dundee Courier

Mr. Edward Farquharson Johnston, a British Vice-Consul in Seville and then co-proprietor of the firm MacAndrews & Co, who shipped oranges from Spain to the UK, became the club’s first president. The club’s first captain was another Scot, Hugh Maccoll, who had moved to Seville to become a technical manager of Portilla White Foundry. A letter would be sent to Messers Alexander Mackay and Robert Russell Ross, who oversaw the Rio Tinto mines and had founded Huelva Recreation Club, the oldest football team in Spain launched a year earlier. Sevilla won that game against Huelva 2-0 with the first official goal scored in Spanish football history by the Roja’s Isais Ritson; Ritson lived in the city at no 41 Calle Bailen the house still stands to this very day. Downstream, two miles past the port in La Tablada is where this historic game took place.

Seville played a 2,3,5 system, and the team lineup was made up of employees from the Seville Water Works and Johnston’s shipping company: Edwin Plews, Hugh MacColl, GT Charlesworth, D. Thomson, H. Stroneger, W.Logan, T.Geddes, H. Welton P. Merry, J. White Jnr, and J. Poppy were the first men to play for Sevilla.

The letter requesting the friendly game was published in the local Spanish newspaper ‘La Provincia.’
It would take the club fifteen years to officially register their association at then secretary’s house Manuel Jimenez de León at no. 14 Calle Teodosio on the 14th of October ‘the illusion was born…’.
By then, the locals had been smitten by association football, and it was mainly locals who formed the club.
One stipulation would eventually divide the members that all players live in Seville and have a similar background and a good social status.

There are always two great teams in every city, so it was in September 1907 a group of medical students from the local polytechnic formed Sevilla Balompie; Balompie literally meaning football. The team initially togged out in blue and white, but captain and trainer of the team Manuel Ramos Asensio who had been schooled at Dumfries Marist School in Scotland and had taken home a Celtic shirt.

Influenced by the teachings of Celtic founder Andrew Keirns, who had left Ballymote Co. Sligo for a life with the Marist Brothers, young Manuel listened about the club in Glasgow that was founded to feed the poor immigrant Irish.
Asensio was in attendance when Celtic played their first-ever competitive game in the International Exhibition against Abercorn on the 1st of August 1888. The tournament was part of the Glasgow International Exhibition in Kelvingrove Park to promote Glasgow and its industry and commerce; matches were played at Glasgow University’s recreation grounds in Kelvinside – Celtic drew 1-1, and Manuel was taken by the colours. Betis would eventually swap their blue and white for the green and white of Glasgow.

In contrast to Sevilla F.C. – Balompie welcomed non-resident foreigners to play for the club, and the two teams met in 1909 when Balompie beat Sevilla. Balompie would beat their rivals in total three times that year which provoked something of a crisis at Sevilla F.C. The club decided to change its rules about lower working-class players being allowed to play for the club; from then on, only those with social standing could wear Seville’s red.

This caused consternation among some members leading to many resigning from the club. Some crossed the divide leading to Sevilla Balompie becoming ‘Betis Balompie’. Within five years, Betis would receive its royal patronage from King Alfonso XIII leading to the name ‘Real Betis Balompie’. In 1922 Patrick O’Connell would land on the Spanish shores in the city of Santander, ‘the General’ would teach the King’s children how to play football in their holiday residence.

On the 23rd of November 1928, the creation of a Spanish football league was mooted; it would see a ten-team league created with the six previous winners of the Copa Del Rey (Kings Cup) automatically admitted with the three other teams who made finals also gaining entry. The tenth place would be decided by a round-robin tournament and in the mix would be the two clubs of Seville.

Real Betis would kick off the tournament on Christmas Day in 1928, beating Alaves 2-1. By then, wearing green and white, Los Beticos would defeat Real Oviedo 1-0 in the quarter-finals. Four days later, on January 17th, Sevilla F.C. would put four goals past Deportivo La Coruna to reach the semi-finals and a tie with Celta Vigo. Ultimately, Don Patricio would destroy the chances of Seville’s finest sitting at the top table of Spanish football; Racing Santander defeated Betis 2-1 in the semi-finals with Basque Larrinaga starring for O’Connell’s team.

During the Spanish Civil War, Larrinaga would tour Eastern Europe and South America, promoting the Republican cause with the Basque National team; the team would form Club Euzkadi and finish second in the Mexican league in 1939. Larrinaga would remain in Mexico and never see his homeland again. The Basque national team would never play again until 1979 against a League of Ireland side managed by Bohemians’ Billy Young.

In the other semi-final, Sevilla played Celta Vigo, with La Roja winning out 2-1. The club were then managed by Hungarian Lippo Hertzka. Hertzka of Jewish decent would manage Real Madrid to an undefeated season in 1931/32 with the Los Blancos clinching their first ever La Liga title. By the 3rd of February, there were two teams left standing; it would take three games to divide the sides, with O’Connell leading Santander to victory and a place in the La Liga Primera Division.

The two Seville clubs would start off life in the second division with the original Gran Derbi being played on the 6th of June 1929, even though the clubs played each other in an unofficial capacity in the regional league. A meeting in 1915 had to be abandoned due to crowd trouble with gunfire going off in the stadium as supporters rioted.

The first meeting of the two clubs in La Liga would occur on the 3rd of March 1935 at the Estadio de Nervión.
With O’Connell now in charge of Betis looking for their first-ever title, their bitterest rivals were despatched 3-0; the names of the squad: Urquiaga, Areso, Aedo, Peral, Gómez, Larrinoa, Adolfo, Lecue, Unamuno, Timimi, Saro, Caballero, Rancel, Valera and Espinosa (6 Basques, 3 Canarians, 3 Sevillians and a player from Almeria) would go down in history in the Heliópolis side of town. Patrick lived in the Porvenir neighbourhood among the locals only a twenty-minute walk from the Patronato Field; Betis ground before the Civil War. As Betis were crowned champions that season the boy wonder Isidro Lángara that O’Connell discovered at Real Oviedo finished top scorer.

O’Connell had left Oviedo falling out with the directors on several fronts including the signing of Lángara, as those in the boardroom felt the youngster was too raw to be in the side. Patrick had returned to Dublin in 1931 prior to joining Betis and spent a couple of weeks coaching a local youth team at Dalymount Park where he had made his international debut versus England.

By the summer of 1936, football was brought to a shuddering halt as the Spanish Civil War began. The leader of the coup in Seville, Queipo de Llano, arrived in the city for a tour of inspection on the 18th of July. De Llano arrested Republican General Villa Abrile in his office, the artillery regiment and Civil Guard joined the uprising, and those opposing were executed. Sevillians withdrew back into their districts, building barricades to stop the rebels from entering. However, these working-class areas were bombed, and the Nationalists entered them using women and children as human shields; anybody they encountered was arrested. Executions would take place next to the ancient city walls with people lined up one by one; some estimate 6,000 souls perished, today there is a plaque on the walls in memory of those who died.

After the war, O’Connell returned to Real Betis, who were then in the second division, leading them back to the Primera Division within a year. It was a different city dotted around Seville were concentration camps where those who celebrated the championship victory in 1935 were enslaved. In 1942 O’Connell crossed the divide building a Sevilla F.C. team that would finish second in La Liga to Bilbao in his first season. Ultimately the team he built would win Sevilla F.C.’s first championship in season 1945/46, although O’Connell had left the stage at that point.

In 2017 filmmaker Michael Andersen sat in the bar O’Connell drank in the city; his documentary ‘Don Patricio’ would tell the Irishman’s life. The establishment is on the Betis side of town, and even when O’Connell was manager of Sevilla F.C., he would go to the bar discussing his team lineups with the waiters. That day Michael spoke to a married couple as the camera rolled what developed sums up the city of Seville:

‘Our two sons and I are Beticos, but my wife supports Seville…’ says the husband.
‘I remember when he brought me to the Penya Betica… with the walls green… what am I doing here I thought… what would my father say’ the wife states – ‘when you are born in this city you are either Betis or Sevilla that is it… it is more than a game it’s your identity’ they both agree.
Outside the Penya Bomberos Bar, the firemen supporters club, Michael speaks to fans, one steps forward:
‘For us, Betis is more than football or politics; it is a way of life, a rivalry based on different classes.’
It sums it up perfectly, and still, the beat goes on.