Baleares

For a long time, the history of the club had not been researched, which has only happened in the 21st century. That is why many still trace the origin of the club back to 1942, even though it has been proven and widely accepted that 1920 is the actual foundational year of Atlético Baleares.

Mecánico FC

On 3 April 1920, an article about the foundation of new football teams in Palma appeared in the local newspaper Última Hora. The following sentence stood out in the text:

En los talleres de la Isleña tengo noticias que se hacen preparativos para formar un team (I have news from the Isleña workshops that preparations are made to form a team).

While football used to be a sport for the middle or upper class, this was the first time a working-class group created a football team, concretely a group of workers at Isleña Marítima, complemented by naval machinists that were doing an internship at the company. This team adopted the name of Mecánico FC (in Catalan: Mecànic FC).

Their shirts were based on the colours of the company: three vertical blue stripes on a white background, inspired by the initials I-M on the blue background of the original logo of Isleña Marítima. The workers did not have to spend money on elaborating shorts, as they were able to cut their blue overalls. The members gathered in the café Can Rasca (Carrer de Sant Miquel, 67, which used to be 187, right next to the Carrer dels Oms) in Palma. The team lacked a field and played on an esplanade at the Moll de Palma, very close to the former offices of Isleña Marítima.

Fundición Carbonell (or Mallorca FC)

In the same edition of the newspaper cited earlier, another phrase stood out:

En la fundición de los señores Carbonell se organiza otro once, que promete ser un terrible rival por la corpulencia de la gente obrera que se alista. (In the foundry of the Carbonell men another eleven is organized, which promises to be a terrible rival for the bulk of the working people who enlist)

A team founded by workers of the Fundición Carbonell, a small metalworking company in the city. The team initially used the same name of the company and subsequently adopted the name Mallorca FC. The team colors consisted of a totally white T-shirt and pants. Mallorca FC had its club house in café Can Meca (Carrer Arxiduc Lluís Salvador, at cornering the Avingudes) in Palma and Carbonell played its games in a field called sa Síquia Reial, located between Avinguda del Comte de Sallent and Carrer Blanquerna in the same city.

Birth of Baleares FC (1920)

Later in 1920, Mallorca FC left its social premises and moved to Can Rasca, the clubhouse of Mecánico FC. Given their similar work and social class, the members of both clubs got along well and decided to merge to form a more powerful club. Thus, on 14 November or 20 November (depending on the source), a constitutional assembly was held, in which the fusion of Mecánico FC and Mallorca FC was approved under the name Baleares Football Club. The name was unanimously accepted by the attendees, who considered it representative of the social profile of the club. The club house of Baleares remained in the café Can Rasca. The pitch that the new club would use would be that of Mallorca FC, sa Síquia Reial. As for the kit, the white and blue striped T-shirt of Mecánico FC and the white pants of the Mallorca FC were adopted.

The new club debuted on 21 November 1920, winning 5–0 in the Tirador velodrome against Veloz Sport Balear, which was one of the most potent teams at the time.

The 1920s and 1930s. Growth and consolidation

In 1921, Baleares played its first major tournament: the Copa Ayuntamiento, organized by the Municipality of Palma, and finished second behind RS Alfonso XIII FC (currently known as RCD Mallorca). Afterward, Baleares has been a regular in local competitions.

Soon, a fierce rivalry between those two teams developed, a rivalry that transcended sports. On the one hand, RS Alfonso XIII FC was a team followed and supported by the most well-off classes, as well as by the Spanish monarchists, while on the other hand, Baleares has its origins in the humblest estates and in Republicanism. The rivalry between these teams still exists and is called the Palma derby.

Due to the growth of the club, Baleares moved to the Son Canals Stadium, which opened in 1923 and remained its home for decades. Meanwhile, the club participated in the Regional Balearic Championship, first organized in 1923 by the Catalan Football Federation and since 1926 by the Balearic Islands Football Federation until its disappearance in 1940. Baleares was always in the front line of the competition: it finished as runner-up of the Mallorcan Championship on nine occasions, only surpassed by RS Alfonso XIII FC or CE Constància from Inca. It won the Mallorcan Championship in the 1927–28 season but lost the Balearic Championship final to UD Mahón, the champion of Menorca, by 1–0.

In other competitions, one of the highlights of Baleares was the triumph in the President of the Republic Cup, a tournament played by the top-tier teams of the Mallorcan Championship during the 1933–34, 1934–35, and 1935–36 seasons, with a trophy in dispute awarded by the then-president Niceto Alcalá Zamora. Baleares won the second and third editions and, consequently, the cup in dispute, as teams could obtain the cup if they would win two editions. Some days later, the club was about to participate in the People's Olympiad in Barcelona, which was supposed to be held from 19 to 26 July 1936, but the military uprising by the Francoists impeded the tournament's start and led the players to meet for a friendly in the Republican zone at the start of the Spanish Civil War.