Full name | Club Atlético Banfield |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | El Taladro |
Founded | 21 January 1896 |
Ground |
Estadio Florencio Solá, Banfield, Buenos Aires |
Capacity | 34,901 |
Chairman | Eduardo Spinosa |
Manager | Julio César Falcioni |
League | Primera División |
2016 | 13° of Zona 1 |
Website | Club home page |
Club Atlético Banfield is an Argentine sports club located in the city of Banfield, Buenos Aires. Founded on 21 January 1896 by town residents of British origin (mostly from England and some from Scotland and Ireland), Banfield is mostly known for its football team, which currently plays in Primera División, the first division of the Argentine football league system.
The club's football greatest achievement was obtained in 2009 when it became champion of the Apertura, the first Primera División title won by the club. Apart from that championship, Banfield has also achieved two runners-up places, in 1951 and 2005. Banfield's main rival is Club Atlético Lanús, with which the club has a strong rivalry.
Other sports practiced at the club include boxing, chess, field hockey, futsal, gymnastics, handball, roller skating, taekwondo, tennis and volleyball.
Club Atlético Banfield is one of the oldest football clubs in Argentina. In the second half of the 1880s, many British families settled in the village of Banfield, located 14 miles south of Buenos Aires. These families, with their English-style houses and Victorian social dynamics, gave the suburbs a distinctly British profile. The history of the club began on 21 January 1896, when a group of professionals and English merchants residing in Banfield decided to found a club which they named after the village, which had been named after the railway station, established in 1873, which in turn was named after Edward Banfield, the first manager of the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway. Heading the group of founders were Daniel Kingsland and George Burton, vice president and first. Kingsland was an exporter of cattle in Britain and an accountant while Burton was a Cambridge University graduate.