Football-Mania: the origin of the football fields in Valparaíso. 1882-1920

Abstract

In 1882, the first football club in the country was founded in Valparaíso, thus beginning a first organizational stage, which concluyed with the creation of the Football Association of Chile in 1895. However, in mid-1896, the newspaper La Unión announced that the phenomenon of “Football-Manía” had broken out in the port city, alluding to the action of young people who continued to search in any available space for the possibility of informally developing this new sporting practice. This article presents the research carried out that managed to determine where the first fields for this emerging football activity were established in the urban context of Valparaíso at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, before the construction of the first major infrastructure built for the South American Championship in 1920. For the purposes of determining the respective locations, a review of written, graphic and cartographic sources was used, which could establish with certainty the locations sought, and then, through these discoveries, review what this panorama of the origin and first development of the place of football in the urban extension of Valparaíso and its surroundings.