How was Galatasaray formed

The first team photo of Galatasaray

The Galatasaray Sports Club inevitably earned its pioneering position in the annals of Turkish Sports History from the pioneering institution from which it was born—Galatasaray High School (The Sultan’s School). There is a lasting tie between the school and the club, this being an undisputable reality and a source of great pride.

Established in 1481 by Beyazıt II to train statesmen, the school took its name from the district in which it was located and began to be referred to as “Galata Sarayı” or Galata Palace. The school was modernized in September 1868 in the era of Sultan Abdulaziz. With the reconstruction of the school, the first sports activities began to be organized in Turkey and a program of physical education was initiated at the school, headed by gymnast Monsieur Curel. The steps taken in this way were revolutionary at the time. While developing his students’ interest and skills in sports, making use of modern training equipment, Curel also organized a Sports Festival for them at Kağıthane. The year was 1870. Achievers in the sports events at the Festival were awarded different prizes and medals and at the end of the competitions, the students were treated to a banquet of “pilav with lamb.” This constituted the beginnings of a custom that was to remain a tradition.

The sports trainers taking on Curel’s responsibility afterwards (M. Moiroux, Signor Martinetti, Stangali, and the others) trained the students in gymnastics and athletics, moving on into other branches as well (swimming, rowing, gymnastics using exercise equipment), another “first” for the school and the country. The fruits of these labors were soon to be seen and many sports teachers, among them the great Faik Üstünidman, whose name has been written in gold letters in the annals of Turkish Sports History, and then Major Mazhar Kazancı, the brothers Abdurrahman and Ahmet Robenson all joined Galatasaray High School, where they were instrumental in stimulating student interest in sports branches such as scouting, tennis and hockey. Üstünidman's contribution in particular served to acquaint students with football. The football played then, however, was no different than blind combat and rather resembled a free-for-all. But it was also a reality that as of that time, football had officially stepped over the threshold of the Galatasaray High School ceremonial gates, turning the sport into an indisputable epidemic.

Two Englishmen living in Istanbul in 1901, James Lafontaine and Horace Armitage, had formed the Kadıköy Football Club with Greek and British players but in 1903, a dispute emerged and the Englishmen in the team separated and created the Moda Club. In 1904, the clubs signed agreements with the teams Imogen, Elpis and Strugglers to establish the Istanbul Football Union and regular games started to be organized on the “Union Club-İttihat Spor” Field located on what is now the grounds on which the Fenerbahçe Şükrü Saraçoğlu Stadium stands. As can be seen, these teams were foreign or minority teams. The first football games were thus played by non-Turks and this both interested and bothered the students of Galatasaray High School. Their objective from then on became creating their own football club, learning all the rules “from cover to cover” in the rulebook of this game that they were dying so much to play, and thus matching the prowess of foreign players.

Beating Non-Turkish teams
The founder of the Galatasaray Sports Club describes the foundation story in his book “Ellinci Yıl” (The Fiftieth Year): "On the 1st of the month of Teşrin in 1905, we were sitting in the classroom of our fifth grade literature teacher, the late Mehmet Ata Bey, when a few friends and I decided to establish a football club at Galatasaray. The first entrepreneurs were friends of ours who had both good playing skills and good fighting spirits--young men like Asım Tevfik Sonumut, Reşat Şirvani, Cevdet Kalpakçıoğlu, Abidin Daver, Kamil... Some of the stronger and more active Bulgarian and Serbian students at the school also joined our ranks. We appointed Asım Treasurer, Cevdet Vice-President and I was the President. We made Asım treasurer because he was good at collecting a kurush apiece from each one of us every week. I became President because I was good at greasing the ball and blowing it up. I used to treat the ball as if it were my child. That ball was actually all we had. On my way to school, I would pass through “Swine Street” and get some lard. I’ll grease the ball with the lard and blow it up; I had cut up my new shoes to put a patch on it. When they saw all this, my friends gave me a position that was really more than I deserved. In those days, the Presidency and the other offices were given to the ones who worked the hardest. Cevdet became Vice-President because he was the one who washed the uniforms.”

The founder of the Galatasaray Sports Club describes the foundation story in his book “Ellinci Yıl” (The Fiftieth Year): "On the 1st of the month of Teşrin in 1905, we were sitting in the classroom of our fifth grade literature teacher, the late Mehmet Ata Bey, when a few friends and I decided to establish a football club at Galatasaray. The first entrepreneurs were friends of ours who had both good playing skills and good fighting spirits--young men like Asım Tevfik Sonumut, Reşat Şirvani, Cevdet Kalpakçıoğlu, Abidin Daver, Kamil... Some of the stronger and more active Bulgarian and Serbian students at the school also joined our ranks. We appointed Asım Treasurer, Cevdet Vice-President and I was the President. We made Asım treasurer because he was good at collecting a kurush apiece from each one of us every week. I became President because I was good at greasing the ball and blowing it up. I used to treat the ball as if it were my child. That ball was actually all we had. On my way to school, I would pass through “Swine Street” and get some lard. I’ll grease the ball with the lard and blow it up; I had cut up my new shoes to put a patch on it. When they saw all this, my friends gave me a position that was really more than I deserved. In those days, the Presidency and the other offices were given to the ones who worked the hardest. Cevdet became Vice-President because he was the one who washed the uniforms.”

 "Our objective was to play in a team like the British, have our own colors and name and beat non-Turkish teams.”

Although there were suggestions that the Club be named Gloria (Victory) or Audace (Bravery), the final decision was that it would be called Galatasaray. The researcher Cem Atabeyoğlu writes that the name “Galatasaray” was born when the team beat a Greek team 2-0 in its first game, upon which the spectators started referring to the players as the “Gentlemen of Galatasaray.” The founders adopted this name after this and decided that they would be called “Galatasaray.”

List of Founders
Ali Sami Yen, Student No. 889 at the school and President of the Galatasaray Sports Club from 1905 to 1919, listed the following 13 founding members of the club on pages 181 and 183 in the Galatasaray Physical Education Inventory-Statistics Ledger in his fine handwriting:

1-Ali Sami Yen
2-Asım Sonumut
3-Emin Bülend Serdaroğlu
4-Celal İbrahim
5-B. Nikolof
6-Milo Bakiş
7-Pol Bakiş
8-Bekir Sıtkı Bircan
9-Tahsin Nahit
10-Reşat Şirvanizade
11-Hüseyin Hüsnü
12-Refik Cevdet Kalpakçıoğlu
13-Abidin Daver

Because the Ottoman Empire did not have a law on associations in 1905, the Galatasaray Sports Club did not find the opportunity to have itself legally certified at first. It was only after the Law on Associations was passed in 1912 that the club gained a legal identity. Since the authorities required the submission of the Club By-laws and the names and addresses of the founding members, some of the members who had retired or completed their training and returned to their countries were taken off the initial list and the founders’ list was revised on September 1, 1913. The new order of founding members on this list was as follows:

1-Ali Sami Yen
2-Asım Sonumut
3-Emin Bülend Serdaroğlu
4-Celal İbrahim
5-Bekir Sıtkı Bircan
6-Reşat Şirvanizade
7-Refik Cevdet Kalpakçıoğlu
8-Abidin Daver.

taken on website

galatasaray.org