Club El Porvenir (Argentina)

El Porvenir are an Argentinian club from the town of Gerli, part of the wider Buenos Aires connurbation. They formed back in 1915, but initially they had nothing to do with football. Instead, a gaggle of immigrant workers wanted to form a Greco-Roman wrestling club, which at the time was as popular a sport as football. Their founding president, Vincent Gioffre wanted to celebrate the area where the club was first formed, Villa Porvenir - at that time a run down shanty town - so decreed that the club should be called Club El Porvenir, or when literally translated, Club of The Future.

They soon became major players in the wrestling game, but when interest in the sport started to wain, the club's elder's decided that in order to keep the club going, they ought to diversify into other sports. So it was that in 1917 they branched out into the sport of football, and have stuck with it ever since. They entered a team into the Argentinian second division the following year. Early on they played at a stadium with the delightful name of Sígueme Si Puedes, translating as Follow Me if You Can. Rather auspiciously they finished their first tournament in last place, gathering just the single point over the whole season.

Back in the first few years they played in the national top tier now and again, but at the time there was a major schism between governing bodies, so some Argentinian football historians claim that they were never officially a top flight side. One thing is for sure though - they haven't played at the highest level of Argentinian football since it went fully professional in 1931. These days they play in the Primera C Metropolitana, the fourth tier of the national game, and play at the Estadio de Enrique Roberts, which holds 15,000 Futurists.  

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