José Gandarias

José Gandarias Urquijo (20 March 1904 – 2 February 1979) was a Spanish footballer who played for Arenas Club de Getxo before becoming its president in the late 1920s. Under his presidency, the team was the 1927 Copa del Rey runners-up, but he is best known for being the youngest-ever first-team player in the history of Real Madrid, which he achieved in a friendly in 1916, when he was still a child of 12.

Apart from football, he also practiced regattas, becoming champion of several competitions and founding the . He was the third of seven children, five sons and two daughters, including two older brothers, Pedro Pascual and Juan Manuel. This meeting, which took place at the Campo de O'Donnell on 17 December, did not have much impact on the press of the time, so the only chronicle of that match was published by Madrid Sport, a magazine prepared by several members of Madrid FC, which stated that "Gandarias, a little boy from Infantil, replaced Bilbao in the second half, and despite never having played on the outside left, he performed quite well".

The Gandarias brothers, Pedro aged 15, Juan Manuel aged 14, and José aged 12, had all played football for Madrid's youth team, but only one of them made it to the first team, with most investigations and historians agreeing that the identity of this Gandarias most likely belongs to José since "a little boy" from the Infantil team is closer to a 12-year-old child, whether small or younger, than to one of 14 or 15.

Two months later, in February 1917, Gandarias featured in a match between club veterans and club youth players, playing for the latter side alongside established players from the first team, such as Ricardo Álvarez, Sotero Aranguren, and Eduardo Teus, thus making it clear that he was being considered by most first team members as a player of the future. He held the Arenas presidency for three seasons, from 1926 to 1929, and under his presidency, the team reached the final of the 1927 Copa del Rey, which ended in a 0–1 loss to Real Unión.

In 1928, the vice president of Arenas, José María Acha, played a crucial role in organizing the first national tournament for professional clubs in Spain, Torneo de Campeones, the forerunner for La Liga, which began a year later, so Gandarias, as the president of Arenas during this period, had a small contribution to the birth of the Spanish top division league. He was also vice president of the Biscayan Hockey Federation representing the Arenas, since he was president of this last.

In 1967, he gave an interview on equestrian themes to the Marca newspaper.

In his professional life, Gandarias became the director of Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, which had been founded by his father to industrialize the Guernica area. He also directed some of his father's companies dedicated to metal.

Death Gandarias died in Madrid on 2 February 1979, at the age of 74.