Excursionistas: Heart and soul in Buenos Aires

Words: Groundspotters

Images: Groundspotters

On the corner of Coronel Díaz and Soler, in the Palermo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires city, a group of friends, who used to go on excursions to Isla Maciel and the Delta of Paraná River to practice different athletic activities, used to meet.

Looking for their place of belonging and identification, on February 1st 1910, they decided to found the Club Unión Excursionistas.

Since several of its members played football regularly, they decided to form their own team, for which they chose a green shirt with a horizontal white stripe.

Green for the colour of the grass and white because of the tablecloths they used for picnics during their regular excursions.

In 1919, the club changed its name to Club Atletico Excursionistas and transformed its shirt, keeping the colours with which it was born, but with vertical stripes, which it maintains to this day.

©Groundspotters/ Terrace Edition. Club Atlético Excursionistas.

In 1924, in the old San Lorenzo stadium, after beating Talleres de Remedios de Escalada by two goals to one, they achieved promotion to the first division, where they would face the most famous and powerful teams in the country.

In 1934, ´Asociación Argentina de Fútbol´ (to which Excursionistas belonged) and ´Liga Profesional de Fútbol´ merged and the Argentine Football Association (AFA) was created.

In view of this restructuring, Excursionistas began to participate in the second division the following year and, from that moment until the present, have always participated in lower categories of Argentine football.

In the traditional neighbourhood of Belgrano, immersed between the upper class and the humble settlement, where La Pampa and Miñones cross, in 1911, Excursionistas built their stadium: Coliseo Del Bajo Belgrano, their home.

The Coliseo is unusual in that it always remained in the same place in Bajo Belgrano, given the humble and hard-working origins of most of the clubs in Argentina, playing football on borrowed lands and how the development and expansion of the city forced most of the teams to move their grounds several times.

‘Los Villeros’ (as Excursionistas´ fans are known cause being neighbours of the settlement of low-income houses) officially inaugurated their stadium in 1912, more precisely on April 14th, with a 4-0 win against Libertad, for a third division tournament.

‘Excursio’ was able to have its first game there thanks to the efforts of members, directors and even players who worked through the night before and up to the start of the game, to have their stadium in prime condition.

2014 was a year of important changes at Pampa y Miñones. Transformations were made to the stands (although it currently seats 5850 spectators, it has a capacity for 7200 people), the playing field was extended, new dressing rooms were built while props and storage rooms and medical facilities were refurbished.

Indeed, the foodlight lighting system was upgraded and turned on for the first time during the celebration of the 105th anniversary of the club.

Furthermore, with the start of a new Primera C tournament on February 2015, Excursionistas became the first club belonging to AFA to have a synthetic grass pitch, which has been approved by FIFA and AFA for national and international competitions.

Although its a complete change, it is of the utmost importance to avoid home games suspensions on rainy days due to poor pitch conditions, a common occurrence in the lower divisions of Argentinean football.

Excursionistas left behind the years of being in the news for sad reasons that had nothing to do with the essence of football.

Now it is writing a new history for this modern club with its doors open for members, fans and neighbours, following the precious promotion to Primera B that they won in 2023.

A current playoff campaign could see promotion to the Primera Nacional, which would be fitting for the Coliseo of Bajo Belgrano, where the ´Villeros’ push with heart and soul.

You can find Groundspotters on X and Instagram: @groundspotters

Excursionistas are on X and Instagram: @excursiooficial

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