How Cornish miners brought football to Mexico

The Cornish Miners Who Introduced Football to Mexico

Published 2 June 2026

Within the 25,000-capacity Estadio Hidalgo in east-central Mexico, supporters raise a tifo depicting a miner.

In one hand he carries a pickaxe, and in the other a pastry with a notably crimped edge.

He is accompanied by two flags, each identical—black with a white cross.

For anyone familiar with the United Kingdom’s southernmost county, this image is immediately recognisable as Cornish.

The followers of CF Pachuca, widely considered Mexico’s original football club, are honouring their heritage.

They are commemorating the tale of how miners from Cornwall helped introduce the sport to what has become one of the globe’s most fervent football nations, and a co-host of this year’s World Cup.

The transatlantic link between Hidalgo and Cornwall dates back to 1824.

Mexico’s mining industry, which had been the foundation of the nation’s economic prosperity, was devastated following a decade-long struggle that led to independence from Spain.

Its predicament attracted the attention of a mining engineer named John Taylor, who had been investing profitably in Cornish mining, particularly in the village of Gwennap.

“He had taken a collection of struggling and flooded mines and transformed them into a success, and he looked at the mines of Real del Monte and thought, ‘I can achieve the same there’,” Cornish mining migration specialist Dr Sharron Schwartz tells BBC Sport.

His involvement led to hundreds of Cornishmen travelling back and forth between Cornwall and Hidalgo over the subsequent decades.

With this movement came an exchange of ideas, culture—and, naturally, sport.

Listen: Not by the Playbook – How Cornish miners brought football to Mexico

The earliest recorded reference to Cornish miners playing sport in Hidalgo actually pertains to cricket.

In the late 1850s, before Association Football regulations had been established back in England, Cornish native and mining magnate Frank Rule founded a cricket team in Pachuca.

“The football clubs emerged from the cricket clubs,” Dr Schwartz explains.

“In fact, some of them were interchangeable, and the cricketers were also the footballers.”

Frank Rule was known in Hidalgo as ‘the silver king’ for his contribution to the state’s mining industry.

The first reference to a football team in Pachuca appeared in 1892, with a local newspaper article reporting on a restructuring of the team due to a “schism”.

“There had been a division between those in Pachuca and ‘the mountain men’, meaning those in Real del Monte.

“When I read this I laughed, I thought ‘how Cornish’. The Cornish love a schism.

“They were instructed to sort themselves out and strengthen their team.”

In 1895, a meeting convened by Rule led to the decision to merge the Pachuca Cricket Club, the Pachuca Football Club, and the Velasco Cricket Club to form a stronger entity.

Thus, Pachuca Athletic Club was created.

Rule donated a parcel of land near his hacienda for the club to host matches, on the condition that games would not be played on a Sunday due to his Methodist beliefs.

By 1902, other clubs had begun to emerge in areas such as Orizaba in Veracruz.

To this day, Orizaba disputes the view that Pachuca were the first club in Mexico, claiming that distinction for themselves.

These two clubs, along with three others, came together to establish the first recognised football league in Mexico, the Liga Mexicana de Football Amateur Association.

Orizaba secured the inaugural league title in 1902, with Pachuca enjoying some success of their own in the early seasons, winning the championship in 1904-05.

It wasn’t only the mining men enjoying the football on the pitch—Cornish women also played a key role in the matchday atmosphere.

“They loved to turn out [for matches] and frequently wore the club colours,” says Dr Schwartz.

“The first mention of pasties being consumed [in Mexico] was when play stopped during a cricket match. I can imagine those were cooked by the Cornish ladies.”

Pasties were a staple for miners at the time, with their thick crust acting as a ‘handle’ for dirty hands and pastry sturdy enough to survive being dropped down a mineshaft.

The constant flow of people between Hidalgo and Cornwall fostered a peculiar shared culture thousands of miles apart, with Dr Schwartz noting that it was common to hear Spanish spoken as widely as English in pubs in Redruth and Camborne.

Antony Martin, whose great uncle William Bray was one of Pachuca’s prominent players in the early 1900s, says Bray’s siblings brought some Mexican customs back to England with them.

“They used to have bread with every meal, which is a Mexican thing, and put cayenne pepper on everything. Absolutely everything. They both still spoke Spanish,” says Martin.

“But I remember my grandmother and great aunt were so proud of Cornwall and everything to do with Cornwall, yet until they were teenagers they’d spent their whole lives in Mexico in Pachuca.”

Pachuca’s team in 1903-04, including William Bray (front row, far right)

Pachuca welcomed their first Mexican player to the squad in 1908, with David Islas invited to join the side by the son of a Cornish miner from St Blazey named Alf Crowle.

Crowle, who became player-manager, was praised for breaking down ethnic and social barriers, with Dr Schwartz adding: “He’s probably Cornish-Pachuca’s most famous son, as far as football goes.”

In the early 1920s, many people in Pachuca, including Crowle, moved away in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, causing the football club to lose numerous players.

Pachuca played their last tournament in the ‘amateur era’ of the Mexican game in 1922, with the original club dissolving soon after.

A new version of the club was revived in 1950, before disbanding once more and then reforming again in 1960.

The club have since achieved great things, including winning seven Mexican league titles and the Copa Sudamericana in 2006.

Pachuca fan Eduardo Hernandez says the club’s heritage matters to supporters.

“The club is very proud of it. We were founded by miners and they brought the football to us. People are aware of that.”

Alfred Crowle (middle row, centre) invited the first Mexican player to play for Pachuca, David Islas (front row, second from right)

The club’s nickname ‘Los Tuzos’, translates to ‘the gophers’, referring to a burrowing rodent found in North and Central America and serving as a tribute to their mining heritage.

“It’s part of our identity. You can find the word around Pachuca, for example our bus is called ‘Tuzobus’.

“Everything is ‘tuzo’ around here. It’s part of what we are.”

He adds that Pachuca and Real del Monte still have shops selling pasties, or pastes as they are known in Mexico, with Cornish flags visible in the most traditional stores in Real del Monte.

Pachuca won the Copa Sudamericana in 2006

Real del Monte also hosts the annual International Pasty Festival, which has been held in the town since 2009, and a pasty museum.

Pasties are very much part of matchdays in Hidalgo, although the Mexican versions traditionally contain beef and vegetables, like their Cornish counterpart, but with added chilli.

“It’s our most traditional dish here in Pachuca. If you don’t have much time, there’s always a pastes store around the corner,” Hernandez says.

King Charles III visited Real del Monte’s pasty museum in 2014

Back in Cornwall, while grassroots football is part of the weekly routine, the county is not particularly renowned for its footballing exports.

But Kernow FA, who are a ‘football alliance’ that represent Cornwall at international level, want to arrange a match between their Cornish team and Pachuca in Mexico to inspire the county’s football going forward.

Mexico, meanwhile, will this summer become the first nation to have hosted a men’s World Cup on three separate occasions.

“In every World Cup, we’re the fans who bring the most colour and energy to the tournament, and being at home it has to be even better,” Mexico’s second all-time leading goalscorer and former Pachuca striker Jared Borgetti says.

“We want the world to realise what we Mexicans are like.”

If there’s one thing the transatlantic cousins of Cornwall and Hidalgo will share this summer, it’s that they’ll be enjoying the World Cup with a pasty—or paste—in hand.