The Mallorcan workers' club that stood out against Nazism

BarcelonaManolo González will reunite this Thursday with Luis Blanco, his assistant at Espanyol during their time in the Second Division. Blanco is the coach of Atlético Baleares, in the Second Division RFEF, which, although it has never reached the First Division, is a historic club in Mallorca. one of the few of proletarian origin that remain in Spanish football.

Its origin lies in Mecánico, a team that emerged in 1920 from the workshops of the Isleña Marítima shipping company – the current Transmediterránea – and Mallorca FC, from Foneria Carbonell, a small metalworking company in Palma, as it claims the historian Manel García Gargallo in the book Atlético Baleares (1920-1942). The early years of a century-old institution"In 1919 the eight-hour workday was established in Spain, and only a year later the first two working-class clubs on the island were founded, which then merged. This means that as soon as the workers had the time, they started playing football."

Until then, football had been almost exclusively the domain of Palma's economic elite. One example is the current RCD Mallorca, which was founded in 1916 as Alfonso XIII Foot-ball Club: the founding name reflected its monarchical and conservative character. "Baleares"—as it was then called—attracted a large number of fans, especially from the working class, and from its beginnings rivaled the current Mallorca, which was the team of the sausages (traitors). In 1921, the first friendly match was played, which had to be suspended at halftime due to a pitched battle between the players and the public,” explains García Gargallo regarding this social and political confrontation, of rich against poor and workers against employers, which spilled onto the playing field.

The anti-fascist

With its working-class and republican identity, the club also demonstrated its anti-fascist commitment in 1936, when many of its players, along with those from Constancia de Inca, another club with popular roots, formed part of a team that was to represent the island of Mallorca in the People's Olympiad in Barcelona. That alternative event, a rejection of the Olympic Games organized by Nazi Berlin, was never held due to Francisco Franco's military uprising.

"When the coup succeeded in Mallorca, the players were on their way to Barcelona, ​​a republican territory at the start of the Civil War. The ship's passengers took years to return to the island. Some never came back, living in exile, and some even died on the front lines," says the Catalan president.

In the 1950s, Atlético Baleares – by then called that after another merger – achieved promotion to the Second Division, and in 1960 they built the Estadi Balear, where Espanyol will play this Thursday. The pitch was financed through a kind of crowdfunding In the past, a cooperative of small shareholders, Procampo, was formed, through which the Balearic Stadium was paid for; in this way, all those who invested money became micro-owners of the stadium. It is the same formula that RCD Mallorca had chosen to build Lluís Sitjar, 15 years earlier.

From workers' club to public limited company

The gap with the island's big club began to widen from the 60s and 70s onwards, coinciding with Mallorca's first years in the elite and an economic and institutional crisis at the club. Balearic IslandsThe club, which in the 21st century became a public limited sports company (SAE), marked the beginning of the end for many and nearly disappeared. After bankruptcy proceedings, in 2014 the club was acquired by a German businessman based in Palma who turned it around with the aim of returning it to professional football. He also renovated and restored the stadium, which had been closed due to its poor condition. However, in recent times, some members of the fanbase have pointed the finger at Ingo Volkman, accusing him of ignoring the club's working-class and left-wing past, promoting racist and reactionary propaganda, and supporting the AfD, a far-right German party. All of this has led to a gradual disaffection among the supporters of one of the most important working-class clubs in Spanish football.