2024-01-18 00:23:44
The time difference complicates things, but Alékxander Cassis Ramírez-Gastón maintains almost a family routine of following the games of his beloved Sports University from the distant Baltic Sea. This Peruvian historian and communicator, who has lived in Sweden for three decades, believes, however, that recently his relationship with the ‘U’ has changed. The reason: the book about the centenary club that he produced in the last seven years.
“Just as you think about your family, you also think about the University. It is part of life itself,” says the author of “Génesis de Universitario. The birth of a popular passion” (Editorial Mesa Redonda, 2023).
Cassis Ramírez-Gastón is not new to research on ‘cream’ history. He has published a series of historical essays on the official website of the student body. Although from its structure and approach, the book project is considerably more ambitious, and its objective is to make known to the mass public what the ‘U’ was before Lolo Fernández, the 27 stars and the still fresh ‘Matutazo’ of the 8th November 2023.
“The purpose of this book is for the ‘U’ fan to feel proud of their roots, because it is something unusual that a team has been built to represent the honor of the country. Because that was the initial idea. San Marcos was becoming the last bastion of Peruvian sports, because a century ago there was a great national crisis and it was necessary to train athletes with a healthy mind in a healthy body. And it is something that is also needed today, and will always be needed,” he maintains.
A CHARACTER INSEPARABLE FROM THE ORIGINS ‘CREAMAS’
Although the gunner Teodoro ‘Lolo’ Fernández appears on several pages of the text, there is another character who steals the spotlight at various moments. This is the university professor Carlos Cáceres Álvarez (1898-1951), ‘father’ of Physical Education in our country, and promoter of the gymnasium at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, as well as the University Federation. It was in these spaces that the first components of an identity associated with the claw would emerge to this day.
“Without the presence of Cáceres Álvarez in San Marcos, the U would not have existed. Perhaps there would have been football or basketball teams with university students, but they would not have been truly competitive teams, nor would there have been the ‘U’ symbol, a champion that is difficult to match,” Cassis considers.
On the right, the only one without a uniform, Carlos Cáceres Álvarez, precursor of the cream identity. (Photo: University Sports Club)
Far from being improvised, Cáceres Álvarez gathered from his travels and studies abroad the necessary knowledge to promote the importance of physical culture in Peru. Thus he would be the great protagonist of a decade – the 1920s – that was fruitful for the university environment beyond the classrooms. “His hard work revolutionized scientific physical education and university sports in our country” (Page 43).
Asked about how it could be done so that, institutionally, the figure of this teacher who died in 1951 is elevated to the place that corresponds to him in the ‘cream’ genesis, the author considers that it would be enough for those who manage the club today to begin to mention him publicly. This, plus the diffusion of a ‘centennial’ year, could make everything fall under its own weight.
‘LOLO’ THE GUNNER, NATIONAL IDOL
Not even for a scholar of cream history like Alékxander Cassis Ramírez-Gastón it is possible to resist the temptation to talk about the fearsome ‘cannonman’ Teodoro Fernández Meizan (1913-1996). The one born in San Vicente de Cañete runs through the pages of his book leaving more than records behind.
“Lolo is considered the first national idol that Peru had. And to be a national idol, all the fans have to pay tribute to you, and they did so with him in 1935, upon returning from Chile. They lift him on their shoulders in Callao because he was the axis of the ‘Black Roller’. There you realize the love they showed him even from another club,” he says.
Cassis Ramírez-Gastón refers to the tour that Alianza Lima made in the neighboring country to the south in 1935. Triumph after triumph, the ‘classic rival’ was respected against Santiago Wanderers, Audax Italiano, Unión Española, Magallanes and Colo Colo. The cream striker collaborated on the tour with five goals that, according to the sports press chronicles of that first half of the last century, were of notable achievement.
The top cream gunner of the first half of the 20th century, Teodoro ‘Lolo’ Fernández. (Photograph: Archive)
This last detail, eternally celebrating a footballer that not even some of our grandparents saw play, perfectly explains what it means to be an idol. Although for the author of “Genesis of University”, the gunner from Cañeta encompasses that and several other concepts. “Precisely, his values and his presence on the playing fields defending rivals’ jerseys are an example for everyone, because by playing for others he was also defending the honor of Peru.”
“Before, they talked about national idols, but today, unfortunately, they limit themselves to saying that Lolo was an idol of the ‘U’, but he was an idol of the entire country, and I think that in the past they would never have dared to attack a statue of him,” he laments.
The book that will be presented on January 17 at Crisol del Óvalo Gutiérrez.
BETWEEN CREAM T-SHIRTS AND CONTINUATION PROJECTS
In its little more than 200 pages, the book published by Mesa Redonda contains not only names, figures and black and white photographs, but mainly stories. The little anecdotes are perhaps the most curious thing in a volume called to be placed in the ‘background’ of all cream fans.
One of those little stories has to do with the shirt of the 27-time national champion club. The ‘U’ insignia placed at the height of the heart, the ‘cream’ color so praised in international broadcasts, but above all the experiences of the human beings who were behind it when those details were like small rehearsals of an identity called to transcend.
“Baldomero, son of Dr. Cáceres Álvarez, told me that his mother, Susana Santamaría, embroidered some of the ‘U’ insignia. Logically, it was not just her, but also the mothers and sisters of the players, who at her houses I suppose must have gotten together to do it and then place them on the shirt with a safety pin. The same thing happens with the first flags, also made by relatives of those first Universitario soccer players,” he highlights.
In the center of page 160 of “Genesis of Universitario” an immense photograph in rectangular format shows the detail that its author mentions: the emblem of the now centenary club held with a safety pin. The vintage dream for future new t-shirts? Time and marketing will tell.
Alékxander Cassis Ramírez-Gastón talking about his book at the last Ricardo Palma Fair. (Photo: Editorial Mesa Redonda)
This last factor must also do its part so that Cassis Ramírez-Gastón can carry out the second part of his editorial project, which could see the light of day during the centenary celebration. “In the next book I will delve into different topics from the 1930s. The championships of ’34’, ’36’, and ’39’, and also the Bolivarians, which in this first installment I could only mention as small notes. And if Maestro Cáceres is the great figure of the first book, Lolo Fernández will be the great figure in the next one,” concludes the author.
ABOUT THE PRESENTATION
“Genesis of University. The birth of a popular passion” will have its presentation on Wednesday, January 17 at 7 pm in Crisol del Óvalo Gutiérrez. The author will be accompanied by Jaime Pulgar Vidal and Juan Mauricio Muñoz
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