Foundation and first years (19031939)

The club was originally founded on 26 April 1903[7] as Athletic Club de Madrid by three Basque students living in Madrid. These founders saw the new club as a youth branch of their childhood team, Athletic Bilbao.[7] In 1904, they were joined by dissident members of Real Madrid.[8] They began playing in blue and white, similarly to Athletic Bilbao, but by 1911, Athletic were playing in their current colours of red and white stripes. Many believe the change was influenced because red and white striped tops were the cheapest stripes to make, because the same combination was used to make bed mattresses, and the unused cloth was easily converted into football shirts. This discovery of a cheaper option probably persuaded them to change and influenced the Madrid club being come to known as Los Colchoneros nickname. Other more plausible account of the reason to change colours is that both Athletic Bilbao and Athletic Madrid used to buy Blackburn Rovers blue

Enrique Allende, first President of the club following its establishment in 1903

and white kits in England.[9] Once in 1911, Juanito Elorduy, former player and member of the board of Athletic Madrid, went to England to buy kits for both teams. He did not find Blackburn Rovers kits and bought Southampton F.C. red and white ones instead. Athletic Madrid adopted the red and white shirt but opted to keep Blackburn Rovers' blue shorts, leading to them also being known as Los Rojiblancos. Atletico's first ground, the Ronda de Vallecas, was situated in the eponymous working-class area on the south side of the city. In 1919, the Compaa Urbanizadora Metropolitanathe company that ran the underground communication system in Madridacquired some land, near the Ciudad Universitaria. And in 1921, Athletic Madrid became independent of parent-club Athletic Bilbao. As part of that project the company built a sports stadium, named Estadio Metropolitano de Madrid and Athletic had a new a 35,800 seat home.[10] The Metropolitano was used until 1966, when they moved to the new Estadio Vicente Caldern.[11] After the move, the Metropolitano was demolished and was replaced with university buildings and an office block belong to the company ENUSA. During the 1920s, Athletic won the Campeonato del Centro three times and they were Copa del Rey runners-up in 1921, ironically this final saw them face parent club Athletic Bilbao, and 1926. Based on this record, they were invited to join the Primera Divisin of the inaugural La Liga in 1928. During their debut La Liga season, the club were managed by Fred Pentland, but after two seasons in the Primera Divisin they were relegated to Segunda Divisin. They briefly returned to La Liga in 1934. But were relegated again in 1936, after Josep Samitier took over in mid-season from Pentland. Fortunately for Los Colchoneros the Spanish Civil War gave the club a reprieve, because Real Oviedo was unable to play due to the destruction of their stadium during the bombings. Thus both La Liga and Athletic's relegation were postponed, the latter by winning a playoff against CA Osasuna, champion of the Segunda Divisin tournament.

Athletic Aviacin de Madrid (19391947)

By 1939, when La Liga had resumed, Athletic had merged with Aviacin Nacional of Zaragoza to become Athletic Aviacin de Madrid. Aviacin Nacional had been founded in 1939 by members of the Spanish Air Force. They had been promised a place in the Primera Divisin for the 193940 season, only to be denied by the RFEF. As a compromise this club merged with Athletic, whose squad had lost eight players in the Spanish Civil