Deceased: Eneko Arieta

Athletic Club would like to express their grief by the death of former red-and-white player, Eneko Arieta-Araunabeña Piedra. Through these lines, our organization would also like to offer our most heart felt condolences to all the family and relatives of this footballer of the Athletic Club in the 50’s and 60’s.

Arieta I was born in Durango on 21 August 1933. It is in this locality where he begins to play football, first with the Maristas and Jesuits, and later, for Tavira, a club where he is definitively placed in the position of centre forward. From the Durango club he moves to Getxo and from there to the Athletic, where he remained in the first team for 15 seasons, from 1951-52 to 1965-66.

He was a centre forward who was equipped with excellent physical qualities, thanks to which he enormously helped in defensive tasks. Arieta I was the substitute for Telmo Zarra, a luxurious substitute if we take into consideration his record, since he was able to make 170 goals in 295 official matches. This statistic makes him the seventh maximum goal scorer in the history of the Athletic.

Member of the champion team of the 50’s, ‘Torito’ Arieta, as he was named for his physical power, won the 1955-56 Liga with the Athletic and the Cups of 1955, 1956 and 1958.

Precisely one of his better memories in Athletic Club is without a doubt that last title, obtained against Real Madrid in Santiago Bernabéu; a match in which he was a protagonist when he scored one of the two goals of the red-and-white team.

An official representation of the Athletic Club, headed by its president Fernando Lamikiz, will this Wednesday attend the funeral services of Eneko Arieta, which will be held at the Church of Santa Maria in Durango.

Lastly, we would also like to indicate that the first team will wear a black armband in the upcoming Liga match against Espanyol of Barcelona.