April 14 – The Fish Make a Splash

SANTOS, the club that is synonymous with the most famous footballer ever to play the game, are celebrating their birthday after being founded today in 1912.

Pele’s old boys are one of the planet’s most famous sides and were formed when three sports nuts in the Sao Paulo city decided to jump on the ever-growing bandwagon that was spreading over South America.

Raimundo Marques, Mário Ferraz de Campos and Argemiro de Souza Júnior, originally players from the modest club Americanos, put pen to paper at exactly 11.33pm to create the club, albeit after much debate about what they should be called.

Africa Futebol Clube, Asociaçao Esportiva Brasil and Concordia Futebol Clube were all banded around as possible monikers for the club, but the three friends eventually went back to basics and opted to name themselves after the town they lived in.

Drawing on their coastal roots, the founding fathers also decided that their new charges would be nicknamed Peixe, which means ‘Fish’ and chose a whale as their mascot.

Their early existence failed to trouble the record books too much, but the arrival of Pele in 1955 changed everything.

Everyone’s favourite viagra spokesman would stay at the club for the next 15 years, paving a way for a golden age in the clubs’ history that saw countless state and national titles, as well as two Libertadores Cups and a brace of Intercontinental Cups.

Backed by the likes of Zito, Dorval, Jaïr, Coutinho, Ze Carlos, Pepe, Toninho, Edu, Clodoaldo and Brazil captain Carlos Alberto, Santos would play classic free-flowing, goal-hungry, Samba-style football and became known as the Harlem Globetrotters of the sport.

Pele would eventually leave for the bright lights of the NASL and Santos’ trophy rush would slow down, but their appetite for goals did not diminish and the club became the first in world football to amass 10,000 goals, in January 1998.

In recent years Santos have again looked to their youth system to reignite their side, with players such as Robinho, Diego, Elano and Renato helping them to win the national title in 2002 for the first time since 1968 and notch up another success in 2004.

Here’s a clip of what Robinho used to get up to when he was drawing comparisons with Pele during his Santos days, before he became a Manchester City benchwarmer. Not too shabby. Read about another goal from today that had a hint of the Samba magic about it here and we’ll be back for another slice of footballing history tomorrow, same time, same place.