The Pride of Vallekas

If you remember, a few days back, I wrote a piece titled The "other" Oviedo: CD Universidad de Oviedo - A historic university with a historic football team , talking about the football team of the Universidad de Oviedo. This story is similar - it's about the football team of Universidad de Las Palmas...but that's part 1. Part 2 is a continuation of that piece. Well, not so much continuation as nostalgia, as I wondered if there was anyone who has played for both the "Real" Oviedo (pun intended) and the "other" Oviedo? As it turns out, there are two. One of them is Real Oviedo legend Oli. The other is Alfonso Artabe... The rise and fall of Universidad de Las Palmas (Part 1) In 1994, a group of friends (university students, lawyers and former footballers), who used to play football on weekends, decided to register as a team in the Interinsular Federation of Las Palmas. This idea, which developed in meetings in the neighborhood of Vegueta,...

In the 2006-07 Segunda B season, Real Oviedo were relegated to the Tercera - the fourth tier of Spanish football. Predictably so - three different managers (José Antonio Velázquez, Ramiro Solís, Ismael Díaz) took over that season, the squad's top goalscorer, Jon Carrera, had a tally of four goals, and the team didn't win a single game away from home. As it turns out, the turmoil wasn't contained on the pitch - in 2006 Alberto González took a controlling share in the club. He did not pay social security or tax to the inland revenue and then disappeared - perhaps Cuba, possibly Panama - and is now wanted on two counts of fraud. But there was another Oviedo team that was relegated from the Segunda B that year too. CD Universidad de Oviedo, the team that represents the University of Oviedo, also went down in only their third year in the Segunda B. They have never come back up, and seven consecutive top 10 finishes were followed by a disastrous 2014-15 Tercera campaign, w...