Miguel Morris
Miguel (sat on the floor, the third from the left), still a child, appears in the oldest photo of a football team in Spain dating back to 1893.
Personal information
Full name Miguel Samuel Morris Yrisarry
Date of birth (1880-10-20)20 October 1880
Place of birth Manila, Philippines, Spanish Empire
Date of death 16 July 1951(1951-07-16) (aged 70)
Place of death Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Position(s) Defender
Youth career
1893 Barcelona Football Club
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1901–1902 Hispania AC
1902 FC Barcelona 2 (0)
1902–1903 Hispania AC
1903–1905 FC Barcelona
1905–1906 Moncloa FC
1906–1908 Sociedad Gimnástica
1908–1909 FC Barcelona
1909 FC Star
1912–1914 Català FC
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Miguel Samuel Morris Yrisarry, also known as Junior Morris or Morris III (20 October 1880 - 16 July 1951[1]), was an Anglo-Filipino of British descent who played football as a defender for Spanish club FC Barcelona.[2] His stepbrothers, Samuel and Enrique, also played for FC Barcelona, but Miguel was the most outstanding of the Morris brothers, the boy who appeared in the oldest photo of a Spanish football team played more than 50 games for FC Barcelona between 1901 and 1909, and also played for Hispania AC and Català FC.[3]

Biography

Born in the Philippines as the son of an English father (James Morris) and a Basque mother. In 1886 the family moved to Barcelona, where his father had been transferred to run the Barcelona Tramways Company Limited. On the grounds near the Hippodrome of Can Tunis, their father taught his three sons Samuel, Enrique (Henry) and Júnior (Miguel) the practice of football, a sport which was then practically unknown in Barcelona.[4] Together with his brothers, he was one of the first pioneers in the amateur beginnings of football in Catalonia, and the three of them appeared in what is regarded to be the oldest photograph of a football team in Spain, which was the two sides of the then existing Barcelona Football Club, taken on 12 March 1893, with Miguel being only a 13-year-old at the time.[3] Out of the 24 figures in that infamous photograph, he and the referee, Alfredo Collet, were the only ones who did not play in the 11v11 game that took place that day.

In 1899, Miguel moved to London with his father while his two older brothers stayed in Barcelona and began playing for Hispania AC. He returned to Barcelona in 1901, and joined Hispania AC where his brothers were already playing. In 1902, the three Morris brothers reinforced FC Barcelona during its participation in the Copa de la Coronacion, the first national championship disputed in Spain and the forerunner for the Copa del Rey. Miguel played alongside his two brothers in the semi-finals against Real Madrid CF (then known as Madrid FC), which was the very first El Clásico, and the final, where Barça was beaten 2–1 by Club Vizcaya (a combination of players from Athletic Club and Bilbao Football Club).[5][6]

After this parenthesis with Barça, the Morris brothers continued to play at Hispania AC until 1903, when the club was dissolved for lack of players, so they then join FC Barcelona on a permanent basis, playing for the club for two years until 1905, and helping them win the Catalan championship in 1904–05.[2] Between 1905 and 1908 he lived in Madrid where he played with Moncloa FC and Sociedad Gimnástica.[4] On his return to Barcelona, he played again with Barça and won the Catalan championship again in 1909.[2] Despite this, he left again, this time to join his brothers at Star FC, whose captain was Samuel.[7] He then joined Català FC in 1912, playing with them for two seasons before retiring.[2]

Honours

FC Barcelona

References

  1. ↑ "M. Morris, Miguel Samuel Morris Yrisarry - Footballer". www.bdfutbol.com. Archived from the original on 20 September 2022. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Miguel Samuel 'Junior' Morris Yrisarri stats". players.fcbarcelona.com. Archived from the original on 20 September 2022. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  3. 1 2 "Los hermanos Morris - Pioneros del fútbol barcelonés" [The Morris brothers - Pioneers of Barcelona football] (in Spanish). CIHEFE. 16 November 2014. Archived from the original on 16 June 2022. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  4. 1 2 "El nacimiento del fútbol en Barcelona. Una entrevista a Miguel Morris de 1948" [The birth of football in Barcelona. An interview with Miguel Morris from 1948] (in Spanish). CIHEFE. 17 May 2016. Archived from the original on 27 September 2022. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  5. ↑ "Spain - Cup 1902". RSSSF. 15 September 2000. Archived from the original on 21 July 2022. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  6. ↑ "Club Vizcaya - FC Barcelona (2 - 1) 15/05/1902". www.bdfutbol.com. Archived from the original on 24 October 2022. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
  7. ↑ "Dues nissagues britàniques en el futbol català" [Two British lineages in Catalan football]. www.ara.cat (in Spanish). 6 September 2015. Archived from the original on 28 July 2022. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
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