Galatasaray Spor Kulübü is a pioneer club in Turkish sports history and this characteristic is, without a doubt, comes from the legacy of Galatasaray High School (Mektebi Sultani) which is a pioneer institution that gave birth to our club. The unbreakable bond between the club and the high school is an undeniable reality and a source of pride.
The school was first founded by Bayezid II in 1481 to educate future statesmen and takes its name from the district it is founded: “Galata Sarayı” (Galata Palace). The school got to its current location on September 1 1868 and it was renovated by Sultan Abdülaziz. With the completion of reconstruction and reorganization, first sporting activities in Turkey started within the school. Gymnast Monsieur Curel added Physical Education class to the syllabus and initiated the activities through education.
These steps were truly revolutionary for the country: Curel trained the students with modern tools and organized a Training Festival in Kağıthane in 1870. In this event, different athletes with different accomplishments received medals and prizes and students were offered cooked rice (pilaf) with mutton after the contests. This, later, turned into a tradition of its own that brings alumni and students of the school together every year.
Foreign sports teachers that come to school after Curel (such as M. Moiroux, Signor Martinetti, Stangali) introduced different branches of sports, such as swimming, rowing, apparatus gymnastics, besides gymnastics and track and field. This was also a first in the country. These works gave its first results relatively fast and people like Faik Üstünidman, Major Mazhar Kazancı, Abdurrahman and Ahmet Robenson Brothers, whose names are engraved in Turkish sports history today, worked in the high school and introduced tennis, scouting and hockey to students. Especially with Üstünidman’s leadership, students started to play football for the first time.
Despite first display of football being nothing but a disorganized, fully chaotic hustle of many students in one field, the game was now inside the historic Ceremonial Gate of the school and the love of football spread like an epidemic.
Two Englishmen living in İstanbul, James Lafontaine and Horace Armitage founded Kadıköy Football Club on 1901 but on 1903 because of a dispute between English players on the team, Kadıköy FC divided and gave birth to another club: Moda Club. On 1904, these clubs came together with other teams like Imogen, Elpis, Strugglers and founded İstanbul Football Union. They were playing regular games in “Union Club-İttihat Spor” field in İstanbul where Şükrü Saraçoğlu Stadium is on today.
As it can be inferred, all these teams were non-Turkish or founded by minorities in İstanbul. Galatasaray High School students were interested and saddened by the games played between these non-Turkish teams. Now, their goal was to found their own clubs like English, learn the rules of this game end to end and compete with non-Turkish teams.
The founder of Galatasaray Spor Kulübü, Ali Sami Yen tells the story of the club’s formation with these words in his book “Ellinci Yıl”:
“We determined to found a football club in Galatasaray on 1 Teşrin 1905 according to Julian calendar during the literature class of our deceased tutor Mehmet Ata Bey. We were a few like-minded friends. First friends who were enthusiastic to play and compete were Asım Tevfik Sonumut, Reşat Şirvani, Cevdet Kalpakçıoğlu, Abidin Daver, Kamil… Our Bulgarian and Serbian schoolmates also joined us. Asım was the accountant, Cevdet was the vice chairman and I was the chairman. Asım was the accountant because he was good at collecting a penny for the club every week from the members. I was the chairman because I knew how to oil and inflate the ball. I was caring for the ball as it was my own blood. After all, all we had was a ball. I bought lard every morning on my road to the school. I would oil and inflate the ball with it. I made a patch to the ball by cutting a piece from my new shoe. The friends who saw what I did showed deference to me more than anyone else in the club. At that time, for being chairman or being elected to any other duty, you needed to gather deference by being the most hardworking person in the room. Similarly, Cevdet was the vice chairman because he was washing our jerseys.”
Ali Sami Yen listed thirteen founding members of Galatasaray Spor Kulübü on pages 181 and 182 of Galatasaray Inventory Book as the club’s first chairman from 1905 to 1919.
According to his almost calligraphic writing, here are the “founding fathers” of Galatasaray: