History of Real Madrid C.F.

This article is about the history of Real Madrid C.F., a football club based in Madrid, Spain. For an overview of the club, see Real Madrid C.F.

Football was introduced to Spain by students of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. They included several Oxbridge graduates. In 1897, they founded the club Sky, playing on Sunday mornings at Moncloa. In 1900, this club split into two different clubs: New Foot-Ball de Madrid and Madrid Football Club. On 6 March 1902, after a new Board presided by Juan Padrós had been elected, Madrid Football Club was officially founded and won the first of four consecutive Copa del Rey titles, which were, at that time, the only statewide competition.

In 1912, they moved to their first ground called Campo de O'Donnell after moving between some minor grounds. In 1920, the club's name was changed into Real Madrid after King Alfonso XIII, a reputed football fan, granted the title of real ("royal" in English) to the club. When the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed in 1931, however, the club dropped both the word Real and the royal crown from the emblem, being known from then on and until the end of the Spanish Civil War as Madrid C.F. only. The addition of the purple band to the emblem dates back to the Republican period and has remained there ever since. In 1937, due to the stagnation of the Civil War, all activity disappeared and the club virtually ceased to exist.

Before becoming president in 1945, Santiago Bernabéu Yeste had already carried out the functions of player, first-team captain, club maintenance, first-team manager and director in an association with the club that would last nearly 70 years. He was responsible for rebuilding the club after the Civil War and under his presidency the construction of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and the Ciudad Deportiva.

Bernabéu also reorganized the club at all levels in what would become the normal operating hierarchy of professional clubs in the future, giving every section and level of the club independent technical teams and recruiting staff, such as Raimundo Saporta. Moreover, under Bernabéu's tutelage, during the 1950s former Real Madrid Amateurs player Miguel Malbo founded Real Madrid's youth academy, or "cantera," known today as La Fábrica.

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