UD Las Palmas
Unión Deportiva Las Palmas, S.A.D. based in Las Palmas, in the autonomous community of Canary Islands. Founded on 22 August 1949, it plays in Segunda División, holding home games at the Estadio Gran Canaria, with a capacity of 32,400 seats.
The club remains the only one in Spanish football to achieve back-to-back promotions to La Liga in its first two seasons. It had a 19-year run in the competition, ending in 1982–83. They have been promoted to La Liga on three additional occasions since that time, most recently from 2015 to 2018.
Its main rivals are Tenerife from said neighbouring island. Las Palmas and Tenerife contest the Canary Islands derby. The two clubs are among the most isolated professional football clubs in Europe, since they play their away games on the distant Spanish mainland.
History
Foundation and early years
Even though the club registered with the Royal Spanish Football Federation on 6 June 1949, UD Las Palmas was officially founded on 22 August of that year, as the result of a merger between all five clubs on the island: Club Deportivo Gran Canaria, Atlético Club de Fútbol, Real Club Victoria, Arenas Club and Marino Fútbol Club. The union was to create a club strong enough to keep Canarian players on the island and not to seek a better career on the mainland.Debate was held on the name of the club, which it was agreed would not include the names of any of its predecessors. An early option, Deportivo Canarias, was scrapped due to referring to the Canary Islands on a whole rather than the island of Gran Canaria. The name Las Palmas by itself was also put forward, and then rejected due to the name having already been taken by a defunct club in the city; Unión Deportiva Las Palmas was finally chosen due to its connection to the union which created the team, and its home city of Las Palmas. The first training session at the new club was held on 16 September 1949.
Las Palmas finished second in their first season in the Tercera División, ranking third in the following year's Segunda División to reach La Liga for the first time ever, and became the first Spanish club to achieve consecutive promotions in its first two years of existence. The first season in the top flight ended, however, in relegation, but the team returned to the category in 1954, going on to enjoy a six-year spell.
Top-flight success
After Las Palmas returned to La Liga at the end of the 1963–64 season, again as champions, the club went on to have their most successful spell in the competition. Managed by Vicente Dauder, they finished third in 1967–68 behind Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, and four club players made the Spain squad which hosted and won the UEFA Euro 1964 tournament; the following season the team fared even better and only lost the league to Real Madrid, and thus qualified for European competition for the first time in its history, appearing in the 1969–70 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and being knocked out in the first round by Germany's Hertha BSC.Las Palmas player Juan Guedes died suddenly on 9 March 1971 at the age of 28. The next season, French coach Pierre Sinibaldi led the club to the fifth place, with subsequent qualification for the UEFA Cup: after disposing of Torino F.C. and ŠK Slovan Bratislava, the Spaniards bowed out to Dutch club FC Twente; at the end of 1974–75 another team player, Tonono – a defender who played with Guedes – died of a liver infection.
Las Palmas' third appearance in European competition came with the 1977–78 UEFA Cup, where they defeated FK Sloboda Tuzla of Yugoslavia in the first round before falling to the English side Ipswich Town. Under the management of Miguel Muñoz, and with players such as Argentines Miguel Ángel Brindisi, Daniel Carnevali, Carlos Morete and Quique Wolff, the club also reached their first final of the Copa del Rey in that year, losing on 19 April to Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.
From the 1990s onwards, Las Palmas played mainly in the Segunda División, but also spent six years in Segunda División B – the new third level created in 1977 – and, from 2000–02, competed in the top flight. On 3 October 2001 the side managed a 4–2 home win against Real Madrid, with youth product Rubén Castro scoring two goals for the hosts, but the season ended nonetheless in relegation. On 22 December 2001, Las Palmas played its 1,000th game in La Liga. In the 2009–10 season in Segunda División the club finished 17th, just one point away from being relegated to Segunda División B. On 21 June 2015, Las Palmas was promoted back to La Liga after defeating Real Zaragoza on the away goals rule.
Seasons
Season to season
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