William Mauchan

William Mauchan (1856 – 1927 ) was a Scottish footballer, but mostly a referee, better known for showing the first-ever red card in Spanish football. He was part of the infamous group of Scottish workers that formed Escocès FC. William had six kids who made it into adulthood, all of which, except for his only daughter, were football players.

Personal life William Mauchan was born in 1856 in Glasgow and he married Elizabeth Stewart in 1879, he aged 24 and she aged 22. The couple then settled in their native city, where they had three sons: William in 1881, who died in infancy, Peter born in 1882 and Archibald born in 1884. His 17/8-year-old son Peter was also a founder of the team, but while he represented them on the pitch, William did it off the pitch as a referee. Team captain John Hamilton was also a referee, and he too oversaw at least one match of Escocès FC, although the nature of their relationship has not been confirmed. William acted as a line judge in the team's debut against FC Barcelona on 2 February 1900, and then he was the referee of their second ever match a week later, on 11 February, also against Barça. This game was filled with heavy and reckless tackles, causing some falls and collisions, which the referee Mauchan tried to solve quickly. However, some of the players came to extreme violence to the point that the game became impossible to manage with fairness and legality, and thus, by the end of the game, Mauchan had become the very first referee to show a red card in Spanish football after sending-off one player from each team, the Englishman Stanley Harris from FC Barcelona and the Scottish Willie Gold from Escocès/Català, thus becoming the very first referee to send-off a Barcelona player.

His three youngest kids, John, David and William, founded CE Júpiter on 12 May 1909 at the Cebrian Brewery in Sant Martí. Once in the United Kingdom, William became a correspondent for Mundo Deportivo and promoter of tours of British teams in the Catalan territory. Scottish Motherwell FC and English Burnley FC played friendlies against FC Barcelona in 1927 and 1949, both promoted by William.