Elorrieta Kirol Elkartea

Elorrieta was born of parents tired of waiting. In 1982, a group of families from Bilbao's San Ignacio neighbourhood decided to separate youth football from the extracurricular activities of the Juan de Urrutia school, and on 7 September 1983 they met in assembly to begin teaching football to children aged 8 to 14. The first pitch was prepared behind the Casa Grande of Elorrieta, next to the church, with two epic conditions the club's memory keeps fondly: negotiations were needed with the neighbours of the Mendrugo houses so their animals would not invade the field of play, until the council agreed to fence the perimeter, and there were two showers in the Casa Grande's basement for every team, on a pitch of mud when it rained and of stone when it did not. From that neighbourhood epic grew a club that in 2012 officially became Elorrieta Kirol Elkartea and in 2014 signed partner club status with Athletic Club, joining the lions' development network, to which it has already sent called-up kids. The crest says it all: the Casa Grande and a football pitch, because the club's history is literally that building and that rectangle.