Club Atlético Porteño is an

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

club sited in

San Vicente, Buenos Aires San Vicente is a town and administrative centre of San Vicente Partido, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The southernmost town in the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area, San Vicente is from downtown Buenos Aires, and can be accesse ...

. The club was founded on July 28, 1895, by Irish immigrants as a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

team, which participated in tournaments organized by the

Argentine Football Association The Argentine Football Association (, ; AFA) is the governing body of football in Argentina based in Buenos Aires. It organises the main divisions of Argentine football league system, Argentine league system (from Argentine Primera División, Pri ...

until

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

when the sport became professional in Argentina. The senior squad plays in Tercera, the sixth division of the URBA league system. Porteño also has a women's rugby section. The club has also a women's rugby team competing in "Torneo Femenino", organised by the same body.

History

The beginning

In 1895 Cavanagh, Geogeham, Kenny and O’Farrel were just a group of boys who wanted to form a football team, but they had no money. On July 28, 1895, they met in the

Hipódromo Argentino de Palermo The Hipódromo Argentino de Palermo is a horse racing race track, course located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and one of the most important in the country, hosting 120 days of racing and 1,400 races every year. Races are hosted three days a week, ...

and founded the "Club Atlético Capital" designing Tomas Hagan as president. A few months later, those immigrants bet the money they had saved to a horse called ''Porteño'', which finally won the race paying a hugh amount of money. With the money won in the race, the boys bought the equipment necessary to play football: balls, jerseys, shorts, socks and shoes and they renamed the club as a tribute to that horse, so "Club Atlético Porteño" was the name chosen.

The football years (1907–31)

The football team debuted in the top division, Primera División, in

1907 Events January * January 14 – 1907 Kingston earthquake: A 6.5 Moment magnitude scale, Mw earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, kills between 800 and 1,000. February * February 9 – The "Mud March (suffragists), Mud March", the ...

, where it played until

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly demonstrating that DNA is the genetic material. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris B ...

when the club was relegated to

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commonly known as Segunda División or La Liga 2, and officially known as LaLiga HyperMotion for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spa ...

The first Porteño stadium was located on Alvear (current Del Libertador) avenue and Godoy Cruz in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

. Nevertheless, the National Government expropriated the land to build the "Industrial Pavilion" there, as part of the celebrations of the 100th. anniversary of the

May Revolution The May Revolution () was a week-long series of events that took place from 18 to 25 May 1810, in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. This Spanish colony included roughly the territories of present-day Argentina, ...

in 1910. Porteño moved to a land on Valentín Alsina avenue, near Hipódromo Argentino, also in Palermo. Its stadium was the first (in the city of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

) to have its official stands built in concrete. In 1931 Porteño disaffiliated from the Football Association, due to the club refused to participate in a professional league, being the team subsequently disbanded. Video of a Estudiantes BA v Porteño match in 1915 Porteño's football team won a total of 2 championships between

1912 This year is notable for Sinking of the Titanic, the sinking of the ''Titanic'', which occurred on April 15. In Albania, this leap year runs with only 353 days as the country achieved switching from the Julian to Gregorian Calendar by skippin ...

and

1914 This year saw the beginning of what became known as the First World War, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip ...

and two

Copa de Competencia Jockey Club The Copa de Competencia Jockey Club was an official Argentine football cup competition contested between 1907 and 1933. The winner of this Cup was allowed to play the Tie Cup against the Uruguayan champion of Copa de Competencia. Alumni and Sa ...

, in 1915 and 1918.''Historia del Fútbol Amateur en la Argentina'', Jorge Iwanczuk, Buenos Aires, 1992

The rise of rugby

Although the football team was disbanded, Porteño kept other sports active, such as

, which is currently practised at the club facilities located in San Vicente. The reason why Porteño went off football was that the club wanted to keep as amateur, and rugby union is not a professional sport in Argentina. Porteño affiliated to Unión de Rugby del Río de la Plata in 1932. The team debuted that season in the third division, finishing 6th. In 1935 Porteño promoted to the second division and in 1939 the team won the first division championship organized by the Federación Católica Argentina de Rugby. In 1944 the Government of the City of Buenos Aires notified Porteño it had to leave its lands in Palermo, which were finally expropriated in 1945. In 1951 Porteño won the long-awaited promotion to Primera División, but the team remained there just one season so the following year was relegated after losing its match at the hands of Estudiantes de Paraná. After playing in different fields, the club finally could acquire a land located in Magallanes and Pardo streets of San Vicente in 1971. Porteño still has its facilities there. The same year the club formed its first women's

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

team, which has been developing as years went by.

Venues

The football team had its first playing field in

Palermo, Buenos Aires Palermo is a or neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is located in the north of the city, near the Río de la Plata. It has a total land area of 17.4 km2 and a population of 249,016. It is the only within the administrative division ...

, more precisely on Av. Alvear (now Avenida del Libertador) and Godoy Cruz. The stadium was later demolished to build the ''industrial pavilion'' for an exhibition that took part as part of the

Centennial of Argentina The Argentina Centennial was celebrated on May 25, 1910. It was the 100th anniversary of the May Revolution, when viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros was ousted from office and replaced with the Primera Junta, the first national government. Cont ...

celebrations of 1910. The club then rented a field in the same neighborhood, on a land located next to Hipódromo Argentino and the Golf station (nowadays "Lisandro de la Torre" station) of

Central Argentine Railway The Central Argentine Railway, referred to as CA below, (in Spanish: Ferrocarril Central Argentino) was one of the ''Big Four'' Indian gauge, broad gauge, Great Britain, British companies that built and operated railway networks in Argentina. T ...

. The field was also known as ''the Golf''. The club remained there until 1945."Hitos futboleros en Palermo" at Viejos Estadios blogsite Porteño then established its headquarters in the city of San Vicente in

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

, where it has remained since 1971.Del fútbol al rugby, 125 años de galope Porteño
at rugbychampagneweb.com

Colors

While the football team colors were blue and white in vertical stripes, it is said that rugby jersey adopted its colors in the 1930s, when a group of players of Sportive Francaise joined Porteño to play for the club. Club Porteño members, in recognition of this gesture, designed the shirt combining the light blue color from the

flag of Argentina The national flag of the Argentine Republic, often referred to as the Argentine flag (), is a triband (flag), triband, composed of three equally wide horizontal bands coloured light blue and white. There are multiple interpretations on the reas ...

, and the french blue from France's.

Notable players

Juan José Rithner Juan José Rithner (5 January 1890 – 23 August 1960) was an Argentine footballer, who played as goalkeeper for Club Atlético Porteño and the Argentina national team. With Porteño, Rithner won four titles, two Primera División championsh ...

(1907–19), also goalkeeper of

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. Played 200 matches for the club, scoring 11 goals.

Honours

League

* Primera División (2): 1912 FAF, 1914 FAF

National cups

(2):

1915 Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January *January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction". *January 1 * ...

1918 The ceasefire that effectively ended the World War I, First World War took place on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this year. Also in this year, the Spanish flu pandemic killed 50–100 million people wor ...

Copa Bullrich The Copa de Competencia Adolfo Bullrich, or simply Copa Bullrich, was an official football tournament held from 1903 to 1934 in Argentina. From 1905 to 1915 the championship was contested by clubs playing in the second division of Argentine league ...