Athletic Club inhabit an unusual place
in modern football. Since 1919, in support of Bilbao’s pursuit of Basque autonomy,
every player representing the club has either been born or raised in the region.
It’s a self-imposed limitation that would seem to restrict
Athletic’s ability to compete in the modern era and yet – alongside Barcelona and Real
Madrid – they are one of just three founder clubs never to have been relegated from LaLiga.
It’s a rich tradition and a record of which they’re rightly proud.
It also provides the club with a unique claim over the game’s more old-fashioned qualities,
such as a loyalty and service, and the kind of agency needed to establish something as unusual
as their One Club Man Award, which – over the last five years - has
recognised players from all across the world who have embodied those virtues.
So, the first thing to say is that this is a modern creation. The One-Club Man Award
only dates back to 2015 and a second award, the One-Club Woman, was established in 2019.
In both cases, the awards seek ‘to reward players whose trajectories in a single team
represent values ​​that Athletic Club considers attached to their identity’.
Beyond loyalty, those values include responsibility to the club’s culture,
respect for the supporters, and more obvious virtues, like commitment and sportsmanship.
The only pre-requisite – of course - is that the individual spent their
entire professional career in the same place.
The inaugural winner was Southampton’s Matthew Le Tissier, who decorated the
Premier League with some of the finest goals in its history. Le Tissier is one of the most
famous examples of a player who remained loyal in spite of opportunities to go elsewhere,
but his recognition also involved a subtle nod to history – and involves the story of
how Athletic Club themselves came to play in red-and-white stripes.
The club was founded by migrant British ship builders and coal miners in 1898 and
originally wore blue and white shirts. In 1909, club member Juan Elorduy was abroad in England,
having been tasked with bringing back 25 Blackburn Rovers shirts on his return.
He was unsuccessful, but he improvised while waiting for his ship home at Southampton docks.
The legend is a little foggy. Some sources claim that Elorduy remembered that the local
team’s colours were also those of his native city.
Others suggest he just grabbed what he could find before boarding.
Whatever the truth, 50 Southampton shirts made it to Bilbao,
with 25 of them then heading south, to a pair of Basque students who had started a club in Madrid.
Athletic Bilbao and Atletico Madrid have both worn red-and-white stripes to this day.
Le Tissier collected his award in April 2015. He and his wife made the trip over from England,
before spending the day with club officials and meeting the first-team. He was then presented his
award on the San Mames pitch, at half-time of the LaLiga game against Real Sociedad.
In the years since, the gravitas of the occasion has grown,
so too the list of names recognised. In 2016, AC Milan great Paolo Maldini was celebrated,
after wearing the famous red and black stripes for almost a quarter of a century.
In 2017, German goalkeeping great Sepp Maier was honoured. Maier
was one of the finest ‘keepers of his or any other generation,
making over 600 appearances for Bayern Munich before moving into a coaching role with the club.
By the time of his retirement, he had spent 50 years working for Bayern.
In 2018, former Barcelona captain Carles Puyol was chosen. The year after, it was the late,
great Billy McNeil, who captained Celtic’s European Cup winning side of 1967.
His daughter received the award at San Mames in May 2019,
a few weeks after Jock Stein’s legendary centre-half had sadly passed away.
In the same year, the women’s awarded was presented for the first time.
Malin Moström was recognised for winning over 100 caps for Sweden,
her service to Umea IK, and the two Champions League trophies she won over 11 years.
2020’s ceremonies are yet to take place.
Frankfurt’s highly-decorated midfielder Pia Wunderlich, who won three European Cups,
Six Frauen-Bundesliga titles, and a World Cup with Germany will receive the women’s award, with
Manchester United icon Ryan Giggs due to collect the men’s, as and when global conditions allow.
The One-Club Man and Woman’s awards are rare case of a football team celebrating
those from beyond its walls. It’s a tribal game and anything non-partisan is unusual.
But its subtext, which is described in a document titled The Principle of Origin,
published on the club website, is a not-so-subtle commentary
on the state of the game and a glorification of values that Athletic Club hold dear.
It talks of the changing profile of supporters and how “the craving for trophies” supersedes
all else. It also deals in highly Corinthian themes, referring to the importance of style over
performance and how the importance of locality and culture has been lost within the SuperClub era.
“And where are the last one-club men of PSG and Manchester City?” it asks – not as an accusation,
but in regret over something that their club continues to stand for but which,
elsewhere, is becoming increasingly unusual.
“In their own way”, the essay continues “all the recipients of (the One-Club Man Award) have
demonstrated a real connection with the region of their club. This is what this award seeks to
honour, virtues which seem to have been lost along the way as football has taken a different path.”