Dos Cuidades
- the Oldest Football Fields of Spain
It seemed to be straight-forward. El Molinon, the stadium of Real Sporting de Gijon, Sporting Gijon for short, is said to be the oldest in Spain still in use and it may well be. But football began and is thankfully still played on football fields with terraces and stands just aspirations so in terms of antiquity perhaps the question should be what is Spain's oldest ground. And there the picture is less clear.
El Molinon 1917
El Molinon, in Spanish The Big Mill, or at least the land on which it now stands, is said first to have seen the beautiful game in May 1908. Sporting had been founded in 1905 but did not play its first match until 1907 and clearly that was on a pitch elsewhere. And until 1917 the club is actually recorded as using other locations for games, albeit close by in the still neighbouring, riverside Parque Isabel la Catolicat.
El Molinon
However, the process of actually acquiring the El Molinon terrain, one not completed until 1924, and adding infrastructure - enclosure and a wooden stand - seems to have been begun in 1915 with the first official match not taking place until April 1917. Thus it was only from that date it became, first, a recognisable stadium, with its current capacity of 30,000, and, second, the club's continuously official home. And therein lies something of a quandary.
El Rubial 1918
On the other side of Spain, a thousand kilometres south and east from the Atlantic port-city in Asturias, coastal still but on the Mediterranean, is the town of Aguilas with its stadium, El Rubial, The Blond. The town itself has a population of 35,000, an eighth of Gijon's. It's football-ground with a 4,000 capacity is proportionally about the same. Gijon plays just now nationally in La Liga's second division, Aguilas F.C. regionally in Spain's fourth tier. Yet, off-field they are quiet rivals.
El Rubial
It is known that on 19th January 1913 a recorded match took place between Sociedad Levantina and the town's then football team, Club Deportivo Aguileno, "in the new field ........... behind the electricity factory" with indication it was neither the first played, nor there. It was ground the founder and coach of that local team, Juan Gray, the Scot, John Watson Gray, who had lived in the town for two decades, would in June 1915 purchase and then, prior to retiring to Britain, grant in perpetuity to the community on condition that sport would continue to be played on it. And that is the case ever since, with the street in front now called Calle Juan Gray and much of the tight, immaculate stadium, coincidentally or not, itself painted white and blue.
Now there is no question that El Rubial is equivalent to El Molinon. The former's stand was only added in 1954 and on land that had to be purchased in addition to that already used. Prior to that it was just a football ground. But 1913 or even earlier is before 1917 and continuity is continuity. So perhaps we can settle for the following. Sporting Gijon's football stadium is the oldest one still in use in Spain, perhaps Iberia, Aguilas has the oldest functioning football ground in the same and to you is left the choice of which is more important. As a Scot I haver not.
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