André Didisheim

André Didisheim (23 August 1889 – 30 July 1975), sometimes wrongly referred to as Ditisheim or Didixein, was a Spanish footballer who played as a forward for Madrid FC and Athletic Bilbao. In October 2022, he became the last football player in the history of Real Madrid to be identified.

André Didisheim

Personal information
Full name	André Didisheim
Date of birth	(1889-08-23)23 August 1889
Place of birth	Saint-Imier, Bern, Switzerland
Date of death	30 July 1975(1975-07-30) (aged 85)
Position(s)	Forward
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1908–1909	Madrid FC
1909	Athletic Club
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

In addition to football, he also played tennis and Ski.

Early life

André Didisheim was born in Saint-Imier, Switzerland, on 23 August 1889, into the Ditisheim family, a prominent dynasty of Swiss Jewish industrialists who were instrumental in the development of the Swiss watchmaking industry. As such, in 1907, the 18-year-old Didisheim went to Madrid to learn Spanish because at the time South America was one of the most important markets for Swiss watch manufacture, and therefore, speaking Spanish was highly important.

He was registered by his country in Madrid on 5 October 1908, as a single, office worker, who had arrived in Spain from Epiquerez, and who resided in Madrid together with his cousin Jean-Louis Didisheim, who was the soul of a powerful watch company called the Compagnie des Montres Marvin, SA, which invented a watch for left-handed people.

Playing career

Ditisheim was an all-round athlete who could play tennis and Ski, but above all, he could play football, and he displayed his talent as an attacking midfielder and signed with Madrid FC, making his debut in a friendly match played on the Avenida de la Plaza de Toros field against Sociedad Gimnástica on 29 November 1908. In total, he played 8 matches for the club, including five competitive appearances in the 1909 Centro regional championship, including two tie-break matches against Sociedad Gimnástica and Atlético Madrid, where he scored the winner in both matches to seal two 2–1 victories.

Due to the absence of both Madrid and Atlético from the 1909 Copa del Rey, Athletic Bilbao ended up being reinforced mainly with players from their subsidiary Atlético, such as Antonio Vega de Seoane, but also with three from Madrid, Julián Ruete, Luis Saura del Pan, and Didisheim, specifically for the 1909 cup, in which Bilbao was knocked out in the first round by Club Ciclista of San Sebastián.

Later life

His cousin Jean-Louis died suddenly of septicemia, at the age of 53, after undergoing surgery on his leg due to an accident suffered while practicing skiing. The two were vital in the family watch business, which André continued after the death of his relative through the company Vulcain et Studio, SA.

In 1924, Didisheim founded a new watch brand for the Vulcain company, and ten years later, in 1934, Vulcain became the chronograph of Real Madrid who, in that same year, became champion of the Copa del Rey against Valencia CF. During that season, Madrid's coach Paco Bru used his Vulcain to calculate the times in the training sessions. Ditisheim died on 30 July 1975, at the age of 85.

Discovering his identity

In his brief time at Madrid, his surname is always written in all the chronicles of the time as "Didixein", which was the reason why he became the last football player in the history of Real Madrid to be discovered only in October 2022, thanks to the research work of the journalist Lartaun de Azumnedi, member of the CIHEFE. According to Azumnedi, he had first read the reference to "Didixein" when he was a child and "it had not stopped attracting my attention". He did most of his research work during the COVID-19 pandemic since the confinement allowed me to enjoy more free time for the task, which started with an extensive investigation of the Spanish sports press of the time in search of every time this name appeared, and although he eventually managed to put his face dressed as a Real Madrid fan in a photograph published on 1 February 1909 in the Madrid newspaper Gran Vida, Azumendi reached a dead end beyond the records found.

It was then that occurred to him the possibility that his name was written wrong, and he decided to transform the "x" into "sh" to convert Didixein into Didishein, a surname with clear Hebrew roots, especially if the final letter of changed to m. He then found an advertisement in El Imparcial of Madrid on 17 November 1907, stating that a "Young Swiss man, wishing to learn Spanish, already knowing French and German. J. Didisheim". After the J led him to a dead end, Azumendi kept looking and found out that between 1907 and 1909, there were two Didisheims residing in Madrid, Jean-Louis and André, so the investigation then moved on to find which one could be the footballer, but that sport did not appear as an important element in either biography, and despite trying to contact his heirs, that path did not advance. It was only a photograph of André as a young man that clarified that he was the same one found in the old images of Madrid; furthermore, in his obituary in L'Impartial on 31 July 1975, the deceased was remembered as a great athlete who at the beginning of the century was in Spain and played for a Spanish team.

Legacy

In spring 2023, Vulcain, in collaboration with CronotempVs Collectors, launched a limited edition Cricket watch called "André Didixein", which was created as a tribute to André Didisheim, the grandson of the brand’s founder, who was a director of the company for 50 years. This exclusive watch has a 39mm diameter engraved steel polished case-back and the case contains the Vulcain caliber V-10 manually wound with double barrel, a result of the evolution of the original movement in 1947, and to give it the appearance of the 1950s dial from the original model, a chromatographic effect was created to simulate its aging.