Josep Elías Juncosa (27 May 1880 – 28 January 1944) was a Spanish sports journalist and athlete, who played football as a midfielder for FC Barcelona between 1900 and 1903, although he never played an official match for the club.[1] He was one of the greatest promoters and promoters of sports in Catalonia in the first third of the 20th century.[2]
Elías only played three matches for FC Barcelona, one per season between 1900 and 1903 and with all being friendlies,[1] including the first-ever Derbi Barceloní on 23 December 1900, which ended in a 0–0 draw.[4] Later when he became a journalist, he recalled having witnessed football matches at the Hippodrome of Can Tunis in early 1893, aged 13, between members of the Club de Regatas and Barcelona Football Club, the first-ever incarnation of FC Barcelona that mainly consisted of players from the British colony of Barcelona, but also with Catalans, and in fact, Elias remembered his fellow sports journalist Alberto Serra as one of the first Catalan footballers.[5]
In the early 1910s, Elías used to give lectures and conferences on sport and Olympism at the Gimnasio Garcia Alsina, becoming a great critic of the Spanish Olympic Committee (Comité Olímpico Español, COE) of Gonzalo Figueroa y Torres, the Marquess of Villamejor, while Narciso Masferrer, who had the same interests and objectives than him, adopted a lower profile, hence fulfilling the roles of Good cop, bad cop.[6] In his conferences he stated that the COE was "like the dog in the manger, it neither does nor lets things be done" and described its leaders as "lazy".[7] Elias's campaign against the inactivity of the COE reached its peak on 19 October 1913, when he gave the infamous conference that marked the starting point of Catalan Olympism in Garcia Alsina's gymnasium.[6][7][8] The conference was reproduced in various media and provoked the already mentioned response from Villamejor, who was seriously concerned about the possibility outlined by Elias of seeing a Catalan Olympic Committee sending a delegation to 1916 Summer Olympics in Berlin in case a Spanish delegation was not achieved, and asked for help from the Catalan sports leaders, so that Spain would be in the Olympic Games in a letter addressed to Masferrer.[6][7] On Christmas Day of 1913, it was announced that the COE had authorized Masferrer to establish an Olympic Committee of Catalonia (COC),[6][7] and thus, on 18 December 1913, Elías wrote to the president of the International Olympic Committee, Baron Pierre de Coubertin requesting, without success, the recognition of the Catalan Olympic Committee.[2][7][9] Coubertin responded to Elias and Juncosa's letter of December 1913 by telling him that the IOC could not recognize more than one committee per country, but that he could accept it as a kind of regional committee within the COE.[9] Despite having been forced to accept a Catalan regional committee dependent on the COE, Villamejor was suspicious of Elias' true intentions and wrote to Coubertin on 5 January 1914, stating: "I see that you are aware of all the agitation promoted in Barcelona by Mr. Elias Juncosa. It is always the same story, they want to consider themselves independent, without wanting to understand that their only right of existence is to be Spanish".[6][7][9]
On 21 January 1922, he participated in the assembly of entities and personalities Catalans who constituted the so-called Sports Confederation of Catalonia.[2]
Journalistic career
As a journalist, Elías directed Los Deportes in 1903 and worked at La Veu de Catalunya, where he signed under the pseudonym Corredisses for more than thirty years.[2] He also collaborated in the Levantine Illustration (1900–01) and the Catalan Illustration (1901–15), and directed the newsletter of the Spanish Cycling Union (1910) and Stadium (1913).[2] Along with Narciso Masferrer, Ricardo Cabot, and Jaime Garcia Alsina, Elías was one of the pioneers of sports journalism in Catalonia, and together, they founded the Union of Sports Journalists in 1911, whose purpose was to defend, regulate and disseminate sports journalism which until then was self-taught.[10]
In 1913, Elías took charge of the Los Sports library and promoted the dissemination of its collection, of which he himself was the author of the first volume: Football Asociación.[2] He wrote and published books about sport pedagogy (1916), Ball games (1917), and Exercicis de mar (Sea exercises, 1918), the first sports book of this type in the Catalan language.[2] He also contributed to the construction of the Barcelona Swimming Club, founded by Bernat Picornell and Manuel Solé, and of the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium.[2]
In 1910, Elías married the distinguished artist Carlota Campins in a ceremony held in the monastery of Montserrat.[11]
Death and legacy
Elías died in Barcelona on 28 January 1944, at the age of 63.[1][2] In 1992, his son Raimon wrote his biography, Josep Elias i Juncosa "Corredisses", a forerunner of Catalan Olympism.[2][12]
^ abc"A Catalunya, sense Catalunya" [In Catalonia, without Catalonia]. www.lesportiudecatalunya.cat (in Catalan). 22 July 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2024.
