Elguinaguaria, swan's nest (stage II) "The problem" of football in Arrecife (I) I had arranged to meet Román Cabrera to document myself on Don Antonio Álvarez with the intention of continuing to write the second part, ...
Elguinaguaria, swan's nest (stage II)
"The problem" of football in Arrecife (I)
I had arranged to meet Román Cabrera to document myself on Don Antonio Álvarez with the intention of continuing to write the second part, and possibly a third, which I started last week. Talking to Román always brings up many things, especially about sports and, logically, about Avendaño Porrúa, which is what he and many others still call the current Lanzarote Sports City. While I finish documenting myself on Don Antonio Álvarez, I investigated the "Avendaño Porrúa" which led me to the problems of island football in the 60s.
On October 14, 1964, Eco de Canarias published an interview with the newly appointed island football delegate in Lanzarote, Don Antonio López Suárez. The interview is signed by Aureliano Montero Gabarrón and, after other things, he asks: "Problems?". Answer: "The most serious is the lack of a playing field, because the day the owners of the current Stadium build, we will be left without being able to play even a simple children's tournament." Forceful and precise. At that time, the "Stadium", which would soon be demolished as Don Antonio López had predicted, was located on Argentina Street, occupying the land up to the current Triana Street and on the sides Coronel Benz and Paraguay streets.
"The problem" took 3 years and 7 months to resolve, as the "Avendaño Porrúa" Sports Complex was inaugurated on May 1, 1968. This is evidenced by a chronicle about Unión Deportiva Las Palmas dated the previous day, April 30, published in the Diario de Las Palmas with the following text: "U. D. Las Palmas will travel this afternoon to Lanzarote, where on Wednesday afternoon they will inaugurate the new football field in the capital of Lanzarote, the "Avendaño Porrúa". Las Palmas, with the exception of the players who went to Madrid to join the national team, which are Tonono. Castellano, Guedes and Germán, will present their entire first team. A great reception is being prepared for Las Palmas in Arrecife."
It is stated in the same chronicle that the people of Lanzarote have always been very good hosts: "Tonight they will be offered a dinner in the Jameos del Agua and tomorrow they will take an excursion to the north of the island."
In Montero Gabarrón's preview, it is reported that "The match will be played in the afternoon and a large crowd is expected in the new Lanzarote stadium. The visit of Las Palmas has aroused enormous expectation, especially after their brilliant campaign in the last League. The yellow team will travel back to Las Palmas on Thursday morning. As is known, there will be no League next Sunday, due to the international matches of Spain with Sweden, on Thursday of this week, and against England, later, on the 8th at the Bernabeu." On page 19, illustrating the news, a photograph of the grandstand area of the scoreboard is published in which the neighborhood of 100 homes of Juan Saraza Ortiz of the then, already populous, neighborhood of Santa Coloma can be seen in the background.
But this did not happen by inertia. Román Cabera tells me that, in 1964, given the lack of a football stadium ("the problem"), very restless people from this sport in Lanzarote at the time formed a commission to promote the construction of a new stadium. At that time, since the Stadium that existed between Argentina and Triana streets had been demolished, football was played in the "cemetery field". For those who do not remember or did not live here then, it was located where the Island Council is today and its name comes from the fact that the Arrecife cemetery was previously in that area.
I will continue telling you next week.
Source: http://bdigital.ulpgc.es/jable/
