Joaquim Escardó Salazar (2 January 1882 – 22 December 1957) was a Spanish

Sports journalist Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in a par ...

and

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 lea ...

who played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

for Club Español (now known as

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

). As a player, he won the 1903–04 Catalan Championship, but he found greater professional success through his journalist work, being a match press reporter for newspapers such as Los Deportes, for whom he published what is now regarded as the oldest photo of a

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...

in Spain.

Biography

Born in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of 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 c ...

, Escardó was one of the founding members of ''Club Español de Fútbol'' in 1900. He then become one of the first footballers of the newly formed Club Español, playing mainly in the second and third teams. In 1901 he was a founder, manager, and player of Irish FC. In the 1903–04 season, Escardó helped the B side win the second category, known as ''Copa Moritz'', where he also performed as a striker. For the first team, however, he was put under the posts, and together with

Ángel Ponz Ángel Ponz Junyent (1883 – 20 August 1936) was a Spanish footballer who played as a forward for Club Español (now known as RCD Espanyol). Although little has been recorded of his life, he was one of the most important footballers in the ama ...

, Ángel Rodríguez, and

Gustavo Green Gustavo Gren Córdoba (10 May 1880 – 9 November 1965), better known as Gustavo Green, was a Spanish Association football, footballer who played as a Forward (association football), forward for FC Barcelona and RCD Espanyol. After spending his ...

, he helped Español win the first edition of the Catalan championship in 1903–04, before retiring at the end of the season. Barcelona FC 1893

He also excelled as a journalist, being a match press reporter for newspapers such as Los Deportes. On 6 January 1906, Escardó published in Los Deportes a report about the football game of the 1890s and especially on a match played on 12 March 1893 between two teams (Blues v Reds) of the ''Barcelona Football Club''. In the article, there is even a picture of the 22 footballers that played that match, plus the

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 title ...

and a young boy who watched from the stands,

Miguel Morris Miguel Samuel Morris Yrisarry, also known as Junior Morris or Morris III (20 August 1880 – 16 July 1951), was an Anglo-Filipino of British descent who played football as a defender for Spanish club FC Barcelona between 1902 and 1909, being a m ...

, the younger brother of

Samuel Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the biblical judges to the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the monarchy's transition from Saul to David. He is venera ...

(standing, second from the left) and

Enrique Enrique () is the Spanish variant of the given name Heinrich of Germanic origin. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Enric (Catalan), Enrico (Italian), Henrik (Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian), Heinrich (German), Hendrik, Henk (Du ...

(wearing a

beret A beret ( , ; ; ; ) is a soft, round, flat-crowned cap made of hand-knitted wool, crocheted cotton, wool felt, or acrylic fibre. Mass production of berets began in the 19th century in Southern France and the north of History of Spain (1808 ...

). Escardó did not date it exactly (“The two sides of the then-existing ''Barcelona Football Club'' formed around the years from 1892 to 1895…”), but the coincidence of the players and referee in the photo with the line-ups of the chronicle of the game suggests that this engraving corresponds to the match played on 12 March. This photograph is now widely regarded as the oldest photo of a football team in Spain. In addition to the Morris brothers, other notable figures in the photo include the omnipresent James Reeves and the first Catalans known to play football such as

Alberto Serra Alberto Serra Guixà (10 October 1870 – 28 July 1912) was a Spanish football pioneer and sports journalist, who is best known for writing and signing the first chronicle of a FC Barcelona match, which appeared on page 7 of La Vanguardia on 9 Dec ...

, Tuñí, Chofre, Barrié, and Figueras (members of Club Regats).

Honours

Club

* Catalan Championships: **Winners (2) 1903–04

References

External links

Joaquim Escardó
at BDFutbol {{DEFAULTSORT:Escardo, Joaquim 1882 births 1957 deaths Footballers from Barcelona Spanish men's footballers Men's association football goalkeepers Spanish sports journalists Spanish journalists RCD Espanyol footballers