Eleven of the women who were pioneers of women's handball in Lanzarote recently reunited, after 50 years, to pay tribute to their coach, Román Cabrera Viera, on his 85th birthday. A meeting that served to remember the "glorious" moments they lived in island handball.
Once Eduardo Carrasco had managed to popularize handball among his students at the Arrecife Institute and retain them through the internal leagues he organized in the 1969/70 and 1970/71 courses, Nancy Melgarejo, the then physical education teacher of the girls, who at that time studied separately in the new facilities (those that today house the IES Blas Cabrera Felipe), proposed to her students to also create a handball team to participate in the then games of the Women's Section. That was in the 1970/71 course.
In that first course, their coach was Manuel Barreiro, Nancy's husband, who although his sport was basketball, like many of the army officers of the time, was a physical education instructor. The training sessions were held on the then "rapodo" cement sports court of Avendaño Porrúa, newly built so that physical education classes could be taught, as the new institute lacked sports facilities. There Román Cabrera Viera watched them train, who was in charge of the island's sports complex since its opening.
Román Cabrera, the coach
The following course, in 1971/72, Captain Barreiro's obligations did not allow him to continue with the matches and Román Cabrera offered Nancy Melgarejo to continue with the training of the already "very fond and excited" girls.
As with the boys, handball quickly became popular among the young women who studied at the institute, creating a competition in their environment with four teams that, in the 1973/74 season, became official with the Peñarol, Santa Coloma and Valterra teams, all three organized by Román Cabrera and made up of students from the institute; and the Generalísimo, made up of students from that school where Guillermo González Raviña had also created a school since his arrival on the island in the 1972/73 course.
The power of Radio Lanzarote
Peñarol, which was an island selection, was renamed Radio Lanzarote the following season, starting, always with Román Cabrera, a "meteoric and successful journey" in women's handball in the Canary Islands. Thus, in that same 1974/75 season, Radio Lanzarote, made up of Nieves Luz and Tati Fajardo as goalkeepers, Ana Pérez, Ángeles Cabrera, Blanca Blancas, the sisters Susa and Francis Soto, Emma Rodríguez, Ita Hernández, Gloria Gil, Gloria Perdomo and Carmen Fábregas, was proclaimed provincial champion, eliminating Rocar from Gran Canaria. It thus became the first team from Lanzarote of both sexes and of any sport to participate in a Spanish Championship, which was also for promotion to the then highest category of Spanish women's handball.
That feat was repeated two years later, in the 1976/77 season, when Radio Lanzarote was again provincial champion and again went to the promotion phase to the first division, this time to Valencia. By then, Román Cabrera had already incorporated two young women, then only 15 years old, who later became a reference for island handball: Margot Cabrera Mesa, the goalkeeper of Lanzarote handball, and Agueda Batista, who in that phase was observed by national coaches and called up to the Spanish national team. In that team, Marianela Hernández Avero was missing, considered by some to be the best player of that moment and of all time in island handball, who for family reasons did not continue playing.
Now, to remember those moments they lived in island handball, eleven of the women who starred in that feat have reunited to recognize and honor the man who made it possible, Román Cabrera Viera. And they wanted to do it on the day that their admired coach turned 85 years old.
