José Alfredo Holtreman Roquette (10 October 1885 – 19 October 1918), better known as José Alvalade, was the founder and first club member of

Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal, founded Sporting Club de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP, often known abroad as Sporting Lisbon , is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Lisbon. It is best known for the professional foot ...

in the early twentieth century, along with the brothers Stromp, Henrique de Almeida Leite Junior and the Gavazzo brothers. His grandfather, Viscount of Alvalade took charge as club’s president. Later, José would become Sporting’s 3rd president from 1910 to 1912.

Biography

He was born into aristocracy, his maternal grandfather being Alfredo Augusto das Neves Holtreman, 1st Viscount of Alvalade. Interested in sport from a young age, José was part of a sports association known as Campo Grande Football Club. Despite the name, this association was particularly active in the organization of parties and dances. He studied

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

for 3 years, eventually giving up his profession because he said he was too sensitive to deal with blood and death.

Sporting CP

On April 1906, José Alvalade expressed the intention to form a new club, with the support of several members of Campo Grande Football Club and the financial help of his grandfather, the Viscount of Alvalade, who oversaw the creation of the new club and made the grounds available for the construction of the stadium at his Quinta das Mouras, that covered the current areas of

Lumiar Lumiar () is a ''freguesia'' (civil parish) and district of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Located in northern Lisbon, Lumiar is east of Carnide, north of Alvalade, west of Olivais, and south of Santa Clara and partially of Lisbon's border w ...

Campo Grande Campo Grande (, ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul in the Center-West region of the country. The city is nicknamed ''Cidade Morena'' ("Swarthy City" in Portuguese) because of the reddish-brown colour o ...

and Alvalade in Lisbon. With the financial and logistical support of the Viscount of Alvalade, who was the first president,

was founded on 1 July 1906. José Alvalade, founder of the club, was the first club member, being the vice-president and manager of sports. He was also a football,

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

player. In June 1910 he was named president, the club's third president until then, a position he held until November 1912. Two years later, he left the institution because of disagreements with members of the board of directors. During the founding period, José Alvalade had the desire to make Sporting a ''"great club, as big as the biggest in Europe"''. Guided by the aspiration to open the way to sport in Portugal, when it was still an embryonic stage of development, and with very elitist characteristics, the first "sportinguistas" founded Sporting Clube de Portugal, pursuing the ideals of "Effort, Dedication, Devotion and Glory." In 1947, after a General Assembly, it was decided that the stadium should adopt its current name,

Estádio José Alvalade Estádio José Alvalade is a football stadium in Lisbon, Portugal, home of Sporting Clube de Portugal. It was built adjacent to the site of the older stadium. The stadium is named after José Alvalade (1885–1918), the founder and first club ...

, in his honor, a name that was maintained by statutory imposition, in the stadiums inaugurated on 10 June 1956 and 6 August 2003. José Alvalade died at the age of 33, on 19 October 1918, a victim of the pneumonic epidemic.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvalade, Jose Sporting CP presidents 1885 births 1918 deaths Deaths from Spanish flu