Campaign to name Málaga street after Spain's first-known female footballer

MÁLAGA residents have signed a petition on Change.org for a street to be named after one of Spain's earliest female football players, whom they describe as a 'pioneer'.

Ana Carmona Ruíz, known to friends and family as 'Nita', was born in May 1908 in the Costa del Sol city's Capuchinos neighbourhood, and her life found a new focus when she saw a group of British Naval officers playing soccer in the port, writes petition author Simona Frabotta.

Curiosity turned to passion and, several years later, she started playing for her local team – Sporting Club de Málaga – but in the early 20th century, women were completely forbidden from football, especially being on a men's team.

'Nita' had to dress up as a boy, cutting her hair short and 'bandaging her breasts to hide them', the petition text says.

But even then, she did not look 'manly enough' to hide her gender for more than a few matches, and when she was found out, suffered constant insults and physical attacks, and was arrested and charged with 'public order disturbance'.

To protect her, Nita's family sent her to live with relatives in the nearby town of Vélez-Málaga, but her ordeal did not put her off – once settled in, she started to play for her new home team, Vélez CF.

There, everyone addressed each other by their nicknames, so she became known as 'Veleta' and did not have to deal with the awkwardness of creating a new identity.

Although Nita got away with it this time, her life and footballing career were cut tragically short; aged 32, in 1940, she caught what was then known as 'green lice fever', and did not survive.

She was buried wearing her Sporting Club de Málaga shirt, at the city's San Rafael cemetery, and crowds of former team mates from both the teams she played for and who had known about and kept her secret attended the funeral.

The petition recalls that Nita 'displayed a singular tenacity' in the face of seemingly impossible odds, 'indifferent to the rules of the time about what females could and could not do', and is one of the numerous women whose names, lives and achievements have become ‘lost’ in history but who would almost certainly have been a well-documented personality if she had been a man.

Several towns in Spain are attempting to redress the balance and have renamed streets after women who made their mark locally – or would have done if it had not been for their gender – and the Change.org petition believes Ana Carmona Ruíz deserves to be granted this same honour.

The campaign is addressed to Málaga city hall, although as it was launched very recently and is not widely known about, has not yet acquired more than a few hundred signatures.

At around the same time, another Change.org petition was launched calling upon national news media to pledge to give equal coverage to women in sport as to men, declaring that at present, only 5% of sports news focuses on female achievements.

The petition cites, among others, former world number one tennis-player and 2017 Wimbledon winner Garbiñe Muguruza, three-times Olympic medal-winning weightlifter Lydia Valentín, and karate legend Sandra Sánchez, who is widely held to be one of the world's best in her field.