The backyard of La Callealtera bar had more ambiance than the inside of the establishment. There the children practiced football and also the fighting cocks, which engaged in noisy and numerous fights with the incitement of betting. One day in 1929, Manuel González Lavín had the idea of transferring the bets from the cockfights he had organized to the football league which began that year with ten teams. This is how the swimming pool was born, in this place – also known as Casa Sota – at number 22 Calle Alta in Santander, in an old fishing district depicted in the novels of the writer José María of Pereda.
The invention is attributed to Manuel, one of the three González Lavín brothers – known as the sons of Sota – who ran this bar located in front of the church of La Consolación where the Cantabrian polygraphist Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo was baptized. Next door, a few figures higher, remains the oldest house in Santander, a stone building from the 18th century. Callealtera occupied the ground floor of another three-story house with attic, built in 1920, and still standing, on a street that at that time was known by another name: Menéndez Luarca.
Around 1929, a group of friends started playing around a Sunday coffee to try to guess the results of the championship matches, which were trickling in at the bar. In fact, sometimes the news came directly from those who had come to the field to see Racing de Santander play. This Sunday routine added more people discussing football predictions at the bar, over wine and cigarettes. It was the 1928-29 season and, among others, Larrínaga, Breñosa, Santiuste, Solá, Hernández, Luisito Álvarez, Óscar and Zubieta were playing for Racing. A local team that, at that time, competed in the honorary division alongside Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Club de Bilbao, Real Sociedad de San Sebastián, Real Unión Club de Irún, ‘Europa de Barcelona, de l’Español, des Arenas de Getxo. and Atlético de Madrid.
One of the participants had an idea to materialize the football betting system that was in the head of the bar owner. Francisco Peral, accountant of the La Cruz Blanca beer factory, had the idea of launching a fundraiser that would be given to whoever was closest to the right one. To do this, he created a table with boxes that, the day before, everyone filled in with the results he had predicted. It was decided that each bet would be one peseta. At the end of the 1929 league, there were already around a hundred people participating in the pool. Over the years, between 10,000 and 12,000 pesetas have been distributed in prizes, which gives an idea of the extraordinary acceptance of the initiative.
steering Committee
The Santander Quiniela was originally called “Football Bag” – in fact, the profits were put in a bag and given to the winner – and it was a success because of the seriousness and rigor with which it was developed: no one put their hands on it. the box. A commission was created which included, in addition to Peral himself, Manuel Escudero, Manuel Cos and Antonio Balaguer, who played for Racing. As a preliminary step, González Lavín drafted a regulation containing rules for awarding prizes that resolve, among other issues, situations such as postponed or suspended matches.
The owner of the establishment also prepared the first ticket for the swimming pool. A sheet of paper filled out with the results and placed in an urn at the bar, where it was kept in a safe place. Then, after the matches, a commission headed by Peral ranked the betting successes. It was an operation that lasted up to 12 to 15 hours because the system was complicated: in addition to guessing who had won the match, you also had to guess the number of goals scored by each team.
16 points were awarded for an accurate result, 5 points for a correct match and one point was deducted for goal errors. Therefore, verifying the results was a notoriously tedious task. A local journalist who signed “Lapice” explained in a newspaper of the time the reaction of the billiard player: “If he exceeds 40 years old, there is an illusion, if he reaches 50 years old, there is hope and if he exceeds 60 years, he already believes a real fact and he goes to the address of the football exchange (La Callealtera) and, landing as close as possible to Peral, he dedicates himself to seeing them arrive and look carefully at the ten-year piles that the accountant makes.
If he exceeds 40 years old, there is an illusion, if he reaches 50 years old, there is hope and if he exceeds 60 years old, he already believes in a real fact and goes to the address of the football exchange (La Callealtera) and lands as close as possible to Peral. spends his time watching them arrive and paying particular attention to the ten-year piles that the accountant makes.
Pencil
— La Région newspaper in 1932
What is curious is that the bar did not receive any money: all the pesetas bet were entirely distributed in the prizes. “Peral, the tireless one, never ceases to frighten for a moment and on each of these sheets where the forecasts are printed, he puts in the margin a figure and very often a comment, appealing to all his five senses”, writes the La newspaper explains to its readers the Region of February 3, 1932. The chronicle of the recount was written on a Sunday when 8,813 ballots were drawn. The press gave all kinds of details about the winners of the day: “The winning groups, tied with 55 points, belong, that of Torrelavega to Don Antonio Estévez, member of the Gimnástica bar, and that of Santander to Don Rafael. Pérez, an employee of the Mercantile Bank.”
The La Callealtera bar initiative quickly turned into an unexpected success that surprised even its own promoters. This match attracted more punters, especially Racing fans, who, over the following weeks, came to the venue daily to participate in the lucky tickets. The idea of the new “Football Exchange” spread outside Cantabria and from Bilbao, Barcelona, San Sebastian and Madrid, they sent delegations to the Santander bar to take an interest in the system, which is extended to other cities.
The teacher from the city of La Nestosa was right with a crazy prediction ticket: 12-1 Athletic de Bilbao-Barcelona
Women, who at that time did not frequent bars as much as men, began to enter Casa Sota to try their luck and fill their swimming pools. Letters began to arrive from towns with tickets for betting. One day, we received at the bar a letter from the teacher of the village of La Nestosa – in the press of the time, this appears separately -, Salvadora Cartámil, with a peseta in stamps and some results which, to those who have opened the envelope, they seemed absolutely crazy to them. He predicted a 12-1 for Athletic Bilbao-Barcelona. “Well, you see, he managed all the matches and all the goals, and he won almost 11,000 pesetas,” recalled Gelín González Sota in an interview with the local press in 1964.
Contribution to the Treasury
The Santander pools began moving so much money that they began making contributions to the Treasury in 1931. According to the revenues of the time, they initially earned 403 pesetas per week. Apparently, first a percentage of 5, then 10% was paid. In times of great need, everyone wanted to go swimming. It was the excitement of the week for citizens from all walks of life. The sailors who stopped in Santander or the Mexicans who frequented the bar to buy fighting cocks which they took back to their country. They also couldn’t resist filling out a ticket.
The official name “Football Bag” did not catch on among punters, who began to use the term “Quíntuple”, since in this premier league five first division matches were played. A baptism which gave birth to the current swimming pool, a name already used in 1931 by the Cantabrian newspaper La Región. Other bars in Santander, like El Progreso or Bar Montañés, copied the idea and started their own businesses.
The arrival of the Civil War interrupted the famous swimming pool. From 1945 it was banned by the Franco dictatorship, although Peral himself made the “Football Exchange” available to the Sanatorio de Santa Clotilde de Santander, under the aegis of charity. The “mutual sports betting” gaming system was managed by the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God.
Bar La Callealtera, now empty, was open a few decades ago. In the 1970s, cigarette manufacturers from the nearby Tabacalera factory, also closed today, had breakfast and snacks there. During its operation, it had a certain air of museum, because there were kept the first pools of paper, already yellowed by time, and the documents with the dates of the bets, the regulations, the letters of the bettors and the lists with the names of those who carried out the counting. . Today, on the stone facade, we can still guess, very worn, the nickname of the bar where the swimming pool was born, the fruit of the ingenuity of certain inhabitants of Santander: Casa Sota. They invented the betting system as well as the name.
