Al Ahly SC
Al Ahly Sporting Club (Arabic: النادي الأهلي للرياضة البدنية, literal translation: The National Club), commonly referred to as Al Ahly, is an Egyptian professional sports club based in Cairo. It is one of the most successful football clubs in the world based on total trophies won. Its professional football team plays in the Egyptian Premier League, the top tier in the Egyptian football league system. The club was founded on 24 April 1907, as a gathering place for Cairo's Student Unions.
The idea of establishing Al Ahly in the first decade of the 20th century was raised by Omar Lotfy during his presidency of the High School Students Club, which was established in 1905. The establishment of a club of high school students was for political reasons, and the students needed a sports club to gather them for leisure and exercise.
He discussed the idea of establishing the club with a group of friends who were enthusiastic about it, and in 1907 Al Ahly was established.
The club was first headed by Alfred Mitchell-Innes, who was a British advisor to the Ministry of Finance at the time, in order to facilitate financial support for the club. An official meeting of the club's board was held on 24 April 1907. The committee met at 5:30 pm in the house of Mitchell-Innes in Giza under his chairmanship and the membership of Idris Ragheb Bey, Ismael Seri Pasha, Amin Sami Pasha, Omar Lotfi Bek and Mohamed Effendi Sherif as secretary.
The establishment of the club was approved and architect Ismail Seri designed the main building of the club, which was revised by Mitchell-Innes to place the building in the south-eastern corner of the land, so that the building main entrance would face north. A civil company on behalf of Al Ahly Sports Club was established. Shares of the company were worth £E5 each, and it was the goal of the club when it was established to raise £E5,000. Only £E3,165 were collected over a year, which was not enough. This forced the club to borrow £E1,000 from the National Bank of Egypt in March 1908 by Omar Sultan and Idris Ragheb and Talaat Harb contributed £E100 to the establishment of the club.
The first honorary president of the club was the Minister of Education Saad Zaghloul. The name of Al Ahly Sporting Club was suggested by Amine Samy Amin, to serve the students and graduates of high schools who were the mainstay of the revolution against the British occupation. On 2 April 1908, Mitchell-Innes stepped down as president of the club. Aziz Ezzat was appointed as the new president and became the first Egyptian president of Al Ahly. The official opening ceremony of the club was held in its main building on 26 February 1908. Mokhtar El Tetsh, one of the club legends, is the namesake of the club's old stadium and current training ground
The game of football was not one of the goals of the founders of Al Ahly club, but rather to open its doors to students of higher schools to meet and practice political dialogues. However, the graduates of high schools who were members of the club fell in love with football, which prompted Ahly to build the first stadium in 1909. They used to call it at the time (Al-Hawsh); a colloquial word from the Egyptian dialect, meaning the courtyard in Arabic. The stadium was developed over the years to become Mokhtar El-Tetsh Stadium.
The first official football team was established in 1911. The team was primary and secondary school players who played the ball in Al-Hawash, which was established in 1909 in the club's land. The names of the first players of Al Ahly were as follows: Hussain Higazi, Abdel Fattah Taher, Fouad Darwish, Hussein Mansour, and Ibrahim Fahmy. The star of this team was the striker Hussein Hegazi.
In 1915, Al Ahly made tours of Egyptian cities to play matches and to spread football and its culture. Al Ahly played in Alexandria, Port Said, Assiut, and Ismailia. The team, led by the star Hussein Hegazy, faced many teams, including foreign teams belonging to the British army, which increased the popularity of Al Ahly and the new game in Egypt.[9] Ahly contributed with Zamalek SC, El Sekka El Hadid SC in the formation of the first football team of Egypt to participate in the Olympic games 1920. The club also contributed to the establishment of the Egyptian Football Association. In 1923, Al Ahly played an active role in the establishment of the Egyptian Tennis Federation.
