Almirante Brown

Club Almirante Brown is an Argentine sports institution in the partido of La Matanza, in the western zone of Greater Buenos Aires, originally founded on 1 July 1912 in San Justo, the district's capital, as Club Atlético Almirante Brown, and its first president was Carlos E. Massa. It plays in the second category of Argentine football, the Primera Nacional.

On 21 May 1915, through an assembly, it took its second name, Atletic Club Almirante Brown, but after a cessation of activities in 1919, it resumed operations a little more than two years later, on 17 January 1922 (the date considered so far as its founding) as Centro Atlético y Recreativo Almirante Brown. On 29 July 1967 it returned to its name Club. It is one of the Argentine clubs whose name, colours, shirt design and crest have been defined since its founding in 1912.

It is the most representative sports institution of La Matanza, the most populous municipality in the most populous province in the country, with more than one million eight hundred thousand inhabitants. It has the privilege of being the oldest entity in its district, since the club Estudiantil Porteño was founded in 1902, but in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, and moved in 1936 to Ramos Mejía, so Almirante Brown is the doyen of La Matanza.

It is the first sports institution in the country (among those still active) that originally adopted in 1912 the name of the naval hero of Argentine independence, in keeping with the hundred years since the granting of Argentine nationality to the father of the Navy in 1812. Several clubs of the same name exist nationwide, founded later.

Its colours, yellow and black, originated from an old English locomotive, the Rocket, which inspired the black and yellow of the Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club (CURCC), from which its first kit in 1912 came by chance. It has always kept them, although the shades may have varied over the years.

In 1916 it began its official football activity, affiliating to the Asociación Argentina de Football (now the AFA) and taking part in the Third Division championship (fourth level), competing against Vélez Sarsfield, Ferro Carril Oeste and All Boys, among others. Its first official match was 107 years ago, on 16 April in San Justo against Del Plata (1-3), as part of the institutions with long participation in the official tournaments of the Asociación del Fútbol Argentino. It played the 1934 Second Division Championship.

Back in amateur football, it won the Doble knock out cups of 1943 and 1944, with the participation of teams affiliated to the AFA, and in 1945 it was designated as the representative of the province of Buenos Aires in the Campeonato Argentino Amateur held in the province of Santa Fe. From 1956 it rejoined the AFA for good, where it won five championships and three tournaments in lower-division football.

It is one of the traditional institutions in the second category of Argentine football, both in its old Primera B format until 1986, being one of the twenty clubs with the most seasons played, and in its current format as the Primera Nacional, where it is among the top twenty positions in the all-time table. It is a regular protagonist of the second division, with five runner-up finishes, one final and two semi-finals for promotion to the first division.

In 1970 it had its first and only participation in the top division of Argentine football. It played the Torneo Reclasificatorio de Primera together with Quilmes, Colón and Ferro. Its debut in the first division was against Quilmes on 12 December at the stadium of Club Atlético Atlanta. Because of its participation in that short tournament, it is included in the all-time table of the top category of Argentine football.

It is the only club that has played official matches in the second category of Argentine football against the four big clubs that were relegated: River Plate, Independiente, San Lorenzo and Racing Club. Out of ten matches played, it lost only three against these opponents, and is unbeaten at its stadium, the Fragata Presidente Sarmiento. In the second category it faced thirteen of the seventeen champions of the top division.

It is one of the so-called "big clubs" of lower-division football in Argentina. In 2007 it drew a historic crowd away from its stadium in the third category, when almost 25,000 people travelled to the Cilindro de Avellaneda stadium of Racing Club for the second final of the Primera B Metropolitana against Estudiantes (BA).

It has the Polideportivo Luis Mendoza complex, of fifteen hectares, one of the largest grounds of a metropolitan club, and the social headquarters in San Justo, of two thousand square metres, with first-class facilities.

Its stadium, called Fragata Presidente Sarmiento, located at José Mármol 5400, corner of José I. Rucci, whose pavements belong to the San Justo postal code 1754, has a capacity of 25,000 spectators, which allowed it to retain home advantage with visiting fans against teams such as River Plate and Independiente; a preliminary project for its completion is under evaluation.

Because of its infrastructure, the district to which it belongs and its turnouts throughout its history, it was nicknamed the Gigante del Oeste ("Giant of the West"). Since 1956 it has been a tradition among its supporters to celebrate every sporting achievement in the plaza of San Justo, the seat of its district.

Its main activity is professional men's football, where its first team plays in the Primera Nacional, the second division of Argentine football. Its other historic discipline is tennis, linked to the "white sport" since 1914 with the practice of Share or Xaré, better known as raqueta argentina. It is a member of the Asociación Argentina de Tenis, and is also affiliated to the Asociación de Hockey de Buenos Aires and the Confederación Argentina de Básquetbol.