Odesa British Athletic Club (In Russian: «Одесский британский атлетический клуб» ОБАК in short, meaning: Odessian British Athletic Club) was an earlier Imperial Russian athletic club from

Odesa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative ...

, which was established on 1878 by British workers of the

Indo-European Telegraph Company Siemens Communications was the communications and information business arm of German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG, until 2006. It was the largest division of Siemens, and had two business units – Mobile Networks and Fixed Networks; and En ...

who in 1877 moved from

Kerch Kerch ( uk, Керч; russian: Керчь, ; Old East Slavic: Кърчевъ; Ancient Greek: , ''Pantikápaion''; Medieval Greek: ''Bosporos''; crh, , ; tr, Kerç) is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of t ...

to Odesa.

History

The city of

was the biggest city of the Imperial Russian South-West (see,

Southwestern Krai Southwestern Krai (russian: Юго-западный край, Yugo-zapadny kray), also known as Kiev General Governorate or Kiev, Podolia, and Volhynia General Governorate ( rus, Киевское, Подольское и Волынское г ...

) and was a municipality (Gradonachalstvo, an Imperial Russian administrative unit of the same level as governorate (

gubernia A governorate, gubernia, province, or government ( rus, губе́рния, p=ɡʊˈbʲɛrnʲɪjə, also romanized ; uk, губернія, huberniia), was a major and principal administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire. After the empir ...

) and oblast).The football in south-western part of Russian Empire (Футбол в юго-западной части Российской Империи)
Kopanyi Myach. In 1877 to the city from Kerch moved the

that employed many Brits ( subjects of British Crown). In 1878 they organized the Odesa British Athletic Club (OBAC) which among other sports competitions cultivated the game of

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

. They played at the field located in a neighborhood of Malofontanskaya doroga (Little-fountain Road), not far from a sea shore. For a long time OBAC was composed exclusively out of English only and beside playing between themselves, they conducted annual meetings with footballers of the Romanian city of

Galați Galați (, , ; also known by other alternative names) is the capital city of Galați County in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in eastern Romania. Galați is a port town on the Danube River. It has been the only port for the most par ...

Honors

* Odesa Football Championship: 1911, 1912, ☆2> 1913

Statistics

Odesa Football League

Known Players

* Ernest Jacobs * Hubert Townend *

Sergey Utochkin Sergei Utochkin (12 July 1876 – 13 January 1916) was a cyclist, sportsman and aviator from the Russian Empire. He was the second airplane pilot from the Russian Empire after Mikhail Efimov. Utochkin had a nickname "the Man of all kind of sport ...

File:Збірна ОБАК - 1912.jpg, OBAC Players in 1912 File:Збірна ОБАК - 1914.JPG, OBAC in 1914

References

External links

Information on UkrSoccerHistory

Ukrainian soccer clubs in Imperial Russia
Football clubs in Odesa Defunct football clubs in Ukraine Association football clubs established in 1878 Association football clubs disestablished in 1917 Football in the Russian Empire 1878 establishments in the Russian Empire 1917 disestablishments in Russia British association football clubs outside the United Kingdom Works association football clubs in Russia {{Russia-footyclub-stub