William Leslie Poole (

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, 7 November 1866 – Montevideo, 22 August 1931) was a Kent-born English immigrant to

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

who was important to the development 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 ...

in Uruguay and became known as the "Father of Uruguayan Football."

Early life

Poole was married to Ethel Maude Poole, who was born in

and died on 21 December 1916 in Montevideo, Uruguay. Poole was a Cavendish College, Cambridge graduate who immigrated to Uruguay in 1885 to work as an English teacher at the English High School of Montevideo, where he was active until 1920.

Uruguayan football

By the time of his arrival, there were already some clubs practicing football informally in Uruguay such as the

Montevideo Cricket Club The Montevideo Cricket Club (abbreviated "MVCC") is a Uruguayan sports club based in Montevideo, established in 1861 by English immigrants. Its predecessor had been the now defunct "Victoria Cricket Club", founded in 1842.

, founded in 1861 (the first rugby club outside the United Kingdom), and the Montevideo Rowing Club, founded in 1874. In his spare time, Poole devoted his energy to disseminating and organising the sport in Uruguay. Henry Candid Lichtenberger, an 18-year-old man who was Poole's disciple, founded the first Uruguayan football team on 2 June 1886, the Club Albion. In its original statute, the Albion did not accept foreign players. The Football Association was characterised by having, as the major part of its associates, Uruguayan-born children of The English. Poole's legacy was to organise and professionalise the sport in Uruguay. Unlike Lichtenberger, Poole required the participation of both nationals and foreigners with no distinction of race, language, religion, political opinion or economic position. This mindset was incorporated into Uruguay's mentality. Poole also acted not only as a player – being a frontline for the Uruguay National Team – but also as a referee and as the President of the Uruguayan Association Football League, founded on 30 March 1900, a precursor of today’s Uruguayan Football Association (

Asociación Uruguaya de Fútbol The Uruguayan Football Association ( es, Asociación Uruguaya de Fútbol — ) is the governing body of football in Uruguay. It was founded in 1900, as The Uruguayan Association Football League, and affiliated to FIFA in 1923. It is a founding me ...

– AUF). Poole also practiced

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically ...

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

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

, but his real passion was association football. In his free time, he used to take his students to practice in the Montevideo neighborhood of

Punta Carretas Punta Carretas is a '' barrio'' (neighbourhood or district) of Montevideo, Uruguay. Location Punta Carretas shares borders with Parque Rodó and Pocitos to the north, while from east south and west, it is delimited by the coastline, including ...

, close to the current location of a shopping center. The Montevideo city hall paid honour to Poole by dedicating a place called "Espacio Libre William Leslie Poole" between Constituyente and Vásquez avenues in the Uruguayan capital.

References

External links

* http://www.turismo.gub.uy/ * http://www.cementeriobritanico.com.uy/en/ * http://www.elpais.com.uy * http://www.cienciassociales.edu.uy * Book “José Eduardo de Carvalho 150 años de fútbol” * http://www.sites.duke.edu/wcwp/research-projects/politics-and-sport-in-latin-america/uruguay/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Poole, William Leslie 1866 births 1931 deaths 19th-century English people Presidents of the Uruguayan Football Association Alumni of Cavendish College, Cambridge