Guilherme Pinto Basto

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In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Ferreira and the second or paternal family name is Pinto Basto.
Guilherme Pinto Basto
Guilherme pinto basto.jpg
Born
Guilherme Ferreira Pinto Basto

(1864-02-01)February 1, 1864.
Lisbon, Portugal
DiedJuly 26, 1957(1957-07-26) (aged 93)
Lisbon
NationalityPortuguese
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forIntroducing association football and tennis to Portugal; sports administration

Guilherme Ferreira Pinto Basto (1 February 1864 – 26 July 1957) was a Portuguese all-round sportsman and entrepreneur. He is considered to have been the pioneer of both association football (soccer) and tennis in Portugal, playing in the first recorded football match and winning the national tennis championships on nine occasions.

Early life[]

Guilherme Ferreira Pinto Basto was born in Santa Catarina, a district of the Portuguese capital Lisbon, to a wealthy and aristocratic family. His father was Eduardo Ferreira Pinto Basto and his mother Lucy Custance.[1] After schooling in Portugal until he was 14, he attended various schools abroad, including the Catholic Downside School in southwestern England, as well as other schools in Paris and Germany.[2] Showing great sporting ability from an early age, Pinto Basto became involved in various sports after his return to Portugal, both as a sportsman and as a promoter of sporting organizations. While he is particularly known for having popularized both football and tennis in Portugal, he also took part in hockey, cycling, horse racing, bullfighting, sailing, rowing, car racing and golf. He worked for E. Pinto Basto & Cª Lda., the trading company of his father Eduardo Pinto Basto, and also became a partner in the Vista Alegre porcelain factory that had been set up by his great grandfather, as well as the Anglo-Portuguese Kaolin Company.[2] Pinto Basto married twice: first to Maria Luísa de Portugal de Sousa Coutinho, who died in 1894 and then to a distant cousin, Branca Jervis Atouguia Ferreira Pinto Basto, in 1895.[1]

Early football in Portugal[]

From around 1870, the Portuguese Royal family began to spend part of the summer in the coastal town of Cascais. Aristocrats, and others who hoped to be close to the King, soon followed, including the Pinto Basto family. The Sporting Club of Cascais was founded in 1879 and counted the Royal Family and the Pinto Basto family amongst its members. In October 1888, an exhibition football match, considered to be the first match on mainland Portugal, was organised on the Parada, the former Parade grounds of the Cascais Citadel, situated next to the Sporting Club (now the Museum of the Sea). A leather ball had been brought back from England by Guilherme's two younger brothers, Eduardo and Frederico, who, like their brother, had been studying in England. Players included a count, viscounts, other prominent members of Lisbon's high society, and four members of the Pinto Basto family. They reportedly spent the morning of the game removing stones from the field. The 50th anniversary of this match was marked by a game in Lisbon attended by Guilherme Pinto Basto and some other players from the original game.[2][3][4]

A memorial to the first football match played on mainland Portugal in Cascais in October 1888

A more competitive match, between “Portugal” and a group of Englishmen living in Portugal was organised by Pinto Basto in January 1889. This was held at the spot in Lisbon where the Campo Pequeno Bullring is now located, being won 2-1 by Portugal, with Pinto Basto apparently playing in goal. This can be considered to have been the first proper match in Portuguese history, in that the pitch had markings and goalposts, and the match followed the rules and lasted 90 minutes. Pinto Basto then formed the Foot-Ball Club Lisbonense, which in 1894 played the first inter-city match when his team, with seven English players, travelled to Porto. They won 1-0 and received the first cup awarded in Portuguese football, which had been sponsored by the king.[3][4][5] Despite the initial victory against the English in 1889, the Portuguese then struggled to field a team able to beat British expatriates. Pinto Basto was one of the founders, together with his brothers, of the Club Internacional de Foot-ball (CIF) in 1902 which brought together players from the Foot-Ball Club Lisbonense and other clubs into a team strong enough to beat the British, which, however, was not achieved until 1907. CIF also briefly functioned as an association, organising the first leagues in the country.[4][6]

Early tennis[]

Although tennis was first played in Portugal in British clubs, its dissemination amongst the Portuguese was mainly due to those who had been to England. The main credit for this goes to Pinto Basto, who was for many years Portugal's best player. Cascais Sporting Club had courts by 1882 and, as a member, he gave lessons, including to Prince D. Carlos, who would later become the king. Pinto Basto organised the national championships, which he won nine times. Later, he organised regular international tournaments at the Cascais Sporting Club, the first being held in 1902, when he reached the quarter-finals at the age of 37. In 1923 he persuaded Suzanne Lenglen to participate. At the time she was ranked No. 1 in the world and had become a global celebrity. When Portugal required a national association in order to compete in the Davis Cup, Pinto Basto was one of the founders of the Portuguese Tennis Federation in 1925, and he also became the first president. Portugal's National Seniors Tennis Championships are named after him. He was still playing at the age of 86 when he was considered to be the oldest tennis player in the country.[2][7]

Witness to Assassination of the King[]

On 1 February 1908, Pinto Basto, a friend of the King and a convinced Royalist, went to the banks of the River Tagus in Lisbon to welcome the King and his family home after a long trip outside of Lisbon. He followed the Royal Carriage on foot and was one of the closest people to the King when he and his elder son, Luís Filipe, were assassinated. Pinto Basto later wrote an account of the shooting and of subsequent events. He recorded that in the confusion he, himself, came close to being shot by the police.[8]

Honours[]

Pinto Basto died on 26 July 1957 in Lisbon.[1] In Cascais, a football field and a sports hall complex are named after him. Streets bear his name in Vila Franca de Xira and Fernão Ferro.[2][9]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "Guilherme Ferreira Pinto Basto". Geni. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Recordamos hoje, Guilherme Pinto Basto, Industrial e Desportista, a quem se deve a iniciativa da realização do primeiro jogo de futebol em Portugal, em 1888". Ruas com história. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  3. ^ a b "futebol em Portugal". Infopédia. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  4. ^ a b c "Estrelas cintilantes (27)... Guilherme Pinto Basto - O pai do futebol português". Museu Virtual de Futebol. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Portugal - Competitions before World War I". RSSSF. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  6. ^ "História". Club Internacional de Foot-Ball. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  7. ^ "História do ténis em cascais". Clube Ténis Estoril. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  8. ^ Pinto Basto, Guilherme (1997). "The Tragedy of Lisbon". British Historical Society of Portugal Annual Report (24). Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  9. ^ "Pesquisa por Rua Guilherme Pinto Basto em ruas em Portugal". Portugalio. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
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