If we bear in mind that most doctors of the time agreed that exercise was harmful and unhealthy for women, it should come as no surprise that the family of Anita Carmona, Nita, tried in every way possible to keep her away from this dangerous hobby. They did not understand the girl; why did she insist on playing football, that English sport called Football? It was the twenties of the 20th century, and Anita, born in Malaga in 1908, would not listen to reason.
In her neighbourhood of Capuchinos, sailors and boys played with a ball, and the Salesian Schools, Blessed Father Francisco Míguez Fernández organised matches. This priest, an enthusiastic founder of Sporting de Málaga, was one of her main supporters.
Anita cut her hair, bandaged her chest and began to mix with the male players. She joined the team as an assistant to the masseur, and to wash the riding. And although her parents sent her to Vélez, she managed to join Vélez Fútbol Club under the name of Veleta. She was fast and had a very refined technique.
Why Veleta? Because she entered the stadium as a girl, a cleaner, played as a man and left the field dressed as a woman. The ban on women playing any men's sport was no joke: city guards enforced the rule, and she was often thrown out and booed, beaten and bruised, even though she only played in matches outside her neighbourhood, so as not to be discovered, and even had her hair shaved off. How much passion does it take to stand up to all that?
By the time, during the Second Republic, women were allowed to play sports, and to organise themselves into sports associations, she had stopped playing. For decades her existence was first hidden and then forgotten. A couple of photos of her with Sporting's equestrian team are preserved, possibly taken at Carnival, as if she were not dressed up, but in costume.
Carmen died very young, at the age of 32, of typhus, in 1940, in the middle of the war; women were once again banned from playing football. She was buried in the cemetery of San Rafael, wearing the shirt of Sporting de Málaga, surrounded by her teammates and her rivals, the players who had protected the open secret that was La Veleta.
Espido Freire
