George Meyer was a Swiss-born

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a defender and

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for Spanish club

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Founded ...

and

RCD Espanyol Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona (; "Royal Spanish Sports Club of Barcelona"), commonly known as Espanyol, is a professional sports club based in Barcelona, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top tier of the Spanish football league sy ...

. He was regarded as the best player of Barcelona's early years, playing a pivotal role in the club's first-ever piece of silverware, the

1901–02 Copa Macaya The 1901–02 Copa Macaya was the 2nd staging of the Copa Macaya. This tournament is best known for being the very first trophy won by the Spanish club FC Barcelona. The competition was held on the road between 22 December 1901 and ended on 12 Marc ...

. He was also the vice president of the club and a

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

Biography

In the early years of

football in Switzerland Football is the most popular sport in Switzerland. The Swiss Football Association was formed in 1895 and was a founder member of the sport's international governing body FIFA in 1904. The Swiss cities of Zürich and Nyon are home to FIFA and th ...

, it was allowed to play for an indefinite number of teams from other cities as a guest player in friendly games, and Meyer is known to have played at least for Excelsior Zürich and

FC Zürich Fussballclub Zürich, commonly abbreviated to FC Zürich or simply FCZ, is a Swiss football club based in Zürich. The club was founded in 1896 and has won the Swiss Super League 13 times and the Swiss Cup 10 times. The most recent titles a ...

, two teams for whom

Joan Gamper Hans Max Gamper-Haessig (; 22 November 1877 – 30 July 1930), commonly known as Joan Gamper (), was a Swiss-born Association football, football executive and versatile athlete. He founded football clubs in Switzerland and Spain, most notably FC ...

also played for roughly at the same time, although it still remains uncertain if Meyer met him during those days or later at

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

. He arrived at

in 1901 under unknown. He played with Barcelona for three years until 1904, netting 11 goals in 35 games, and winning the

and the Copa Barcelona in 1903, the former being the very first official title of the club. He was also vice-president of the club in the 1903-04 season. He was a personal friend of

and

Walter Wild Walter Wild – known in Catalan as Gualteri Wild (13 October 1872 – 16 December 1953) was a Swiss engineer, tradesman, footballer, and one of the twelve founders of FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barce ...

, the fundamental head behind Barcelona's foundation and the club's first-ever president, respectively. In 1902, Meyer was a member of the historic Barcelona side that also included Gamper, Udo Steinberg,

Alfonso Albéniz Alfonso Albéniz Jordana (11 September 1885 – 27 September 1941) was a Spanish footballer and referee, as well as a renowned chemical engineer, lecturer and later a diplomat. He is best known for being the first-ever player to play for both F ...

, the Morris brothers (

Enrique Enrique () is the Spanish language, Spanish variant of the given name Heinrich (given name), Heinrich of Germanic origin. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (given name), Henry (English), Enric (Catalan), Enrico (Italian), Henrik (Swedish, D ...

and

Samuel Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...

) and

Arthur Witty Arthur Whitty Cotton, also known as Don Arturo, was a footballer, club president and businessman. Whitty played for FC Barcelona in the first Copa del Rey final and later served as club president between 1903 and 1905. He was also a successful ...

, which participated in the

Copa de la Coronación Copa or COPA may refer to: COPA COPA may refer to: * Computer Operator Programming Assistant. trade of ITI * Child Online Protection Act, a former U.S. law to protect minors from certain material on the internet * Canadian Owners and Pilots Asso ...

(predecessor of

Copa del Rey The Campeonato de España–Copa de Su Majestad el Rey, commonly known as Copa del Rey or simply La Copa and formerly known as Copa del Presidente de la República (1932–36) and Copa del Generalísimo (1939–76), is an annual knockout footbal ...

), starting in the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

as a defender, conceding two goals in a 1–2 loss to

Club Vizcaya Bizcaya, also known as Bizcaya FC or Club Bizcaya (Vizcaya in Spanish) was an association football representative team from Bilbao, Spain, which participated in the 1902 Copa de la Coronación and the 1907 Copa del Rey, winning the former. In th ...

. In 1904 he had certain differences with Gamper that led to his departure for

, where he played the 1904–05 season before retiring. He had a

glass eye An ocular prosthesis, artificial eye or glass eye is a type of craniofacial prosthesis that replaces an absent natural eye following an enucleation, evisceration, or orbital exenteration. The prosthesis fits over an orbital implant and under ...

that fall to the ground in several matches. The date and circumstances of his death are unknown.

Honours

Club

FC Barcelona *

Copa Macaya The Hispania Athletic Club Tournament–Alfonso Macaya Cup, popularly known as the Copa Macaya, was a football competition contested by clubs from Catalonia which ran from 1900 until 1903, disappearing at the same time of its organizers, Hispania ...

: ** Champions: 1901–02 *

: ** Runner-up:

1902 Events January * January 1 ** The Nurses Registration Act 1901 comes into effect in New Zealand, making it the first country in the world to require state registration of nurses. On January 10, Ellen Dougherty becomes the world's f ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, George 1879 births FC Barcelona players FC Zürich players Sportspeople from Winterthur Footballers from the canton of Zürich Swiss expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Swiss expatriate sportspeople in Spain Swiss men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Men's association football defenders Year of death missing