Situated in the capital of Buenos Aires Province, La Plata, Club Everton are the oldest club in the city of 570,000 and have lifted the La Plata Championship on nine occasions. Founded in 1905 as ‘25 de Mayo’, four years later the club’s members voted to change its name to Club Everton in tribute to the English club. That year Everton and Tottenham had just completed a successful tour of South America, playing the first ever professional games on the continent.

CLUB EVERTON were not the first Buenos Aires team to adopt Everton’s name, nor were they the last. There had already been an Everton FC in Buenos Aires, founded in 1906 (the year of Everton’s FA Cup Final victory over Newcastle). In 1910, in Escobar, Buenos Aires Province, clubs were named after both Everton and Spurs (the only known example of the latter). These merged to form Escobar FC who again merged in 1912 to form CA Independiente.

In 1910, the town of Alberdi, 200 miles west of Buenos Aires, also founded its own Club Everton. Two years later, Everton from San Jorge, Santa Fé, merged with For Ever to form CA San Jorge, still thriving in the 21st century. In 1914, in Cañada de Gómez, Santa Fe Province, yet another Everton was founded, which today plays under the name of Asociación Deportiva Everton Olimpia.

But it is Club Everton La Plata that has proved most enduring. Since its formation a century ago the club has gone from strength to strength and is at the heart of the local community. Part football club, part community organisation, it provides its 1000 members with access to a range of activities from skating and gymnastics to taekwondo and, of course, football. It possesses three fully floodlit pitches, changing and restaurant facilities as well as a library.