History of Galatasaray S.K.

The history of Galatasaray S.K. covers over 100 years of the sports from the club based in Istanbul, Turkey. Established in 1905, the club became the most successful club in the history of Turkish football.

After being influenced by the French Lycée model, the Galatasaray High School became much more of a modern school in September 1868. French was the main language for instructing, and many teachers were European. The students included members of all religious and ethnic communities from the Ottoman Empire. The school introduced sports (mainly gymnastics) as a new school subject and Monsieur Curel was the first gymnastics teacher. In 1899, a "football" first came to Galatasaray High School, but the pupils just kicked the ball at the Grand Cour of the school. In autumn 1902 Ali Sami Yen visited his uncle Suphi in Moda and on his way to him he saw Englishmen playing football at Moda field. He told his friends of this new sport, and on October 30, 1905 (which corresponds to "17 Teşrinievvel 1321" according to the Islamic Rumi calendar (hence the common error of giving the date as "1 October 1905" by ignoring the 13 days of difference between the Rumi calendar and Gregorian calendar before the Ottoman calendar adjustment reforms of 1917–1918), during the History and Literature lesson of teacher Mehmet Ata Bey, they founded the club in the back rows of the classroom Literature 5B.

In addition to Ali Sami Yen (Club member No. 1), who was the driving force behind the club's foundation, Asim Tevfik Sonumut (2), Emin Bülent Serdaroğlu (3), Celal Ibrahim (4), Boris Nikolov (5), Milo Bakić (6), Pavle Bakić (7), Bekir Sitki Bircan (8), Tahsin Nihat (9), Reşat Şirvanizade (10), Hüseyin Hüsnü (11), Refik Cevdet Kalpakçıoğlu (12) and Abidin Daver (13) were also involved in the decision to organize such a club. Their first match was against Kadıköy Faure School and they won this match 2–0. There were discussions about the club's name, in which some suggested Gloria (victory) and others Audace (courage), but it was decided that its name would be Galatasaray.

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