I don't know about you, but I can't help choosing a favourite when a city has two prominent clubs. More often than not I will plum for the lowest ranked as I feel that it is in my footballing DNA to support the underdog. That's what happens when you support Bristol Rovers! I don't think too many Betis fans would dispute their position as underdog, but they certainly have the more colourful history, more interesting stadium and as with all good underdogs, an ability to snap at the ankles of more illustrious opponents. First of all though, let's go back to the beginning, 1914 in fact when Betis was formed following the merger of Sevilla Balompié, formed by Polytechnic students in 1908 and Betis Football-Club, who were formed by a splinter group of disgruntled Sevilla FC members in 1909. Betis FC sought royal patronage in August 1914 and by December of that year had merged with Sevilla Balompié to form Real Betis Balompié.
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| Applied algebra for football geeks. How two became one. |
The club continued to use Betis FC's stadium, the Campo del Prado de San Sebastián, but in 1918 moved to Campo del Patronato Obrero. The first match at the new ground pitched Betis against their eternal rivals Sevilla FC, who ran out 1-5 winners. Fortunately for Betis there were happier times ahead. To start with, Patronato itself underwent a major overhaul in 1924 and again in 1928 when Betis joined La Segunda. This last phase of development saw the building of a grandstand which took the capacity of the ground up to 9,000 and the addition of a tennis club behind the north terrace.
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| Awaiting development. Campo de Patronato in 1923 |
In 1929 Sevilla staged a major Ibero-American trade fair, which saw the construction of a new stadium in the Heliopolis district of the city, which was given the unimaginative title of the Estadio Exposición. With an 18,000 capacity, this open, square sided arena was ideally suited to the up and coming Betis, but it saw its first action on 17 March 1929 with an international between Spain and Portugal. Whilst Betis played a few games at Heliopolis and a number of accounts have them in-situ from 1929, the club continued to play their home matches at Patronato until the end of the 1935-36 season. This is significant as Betis reached the final of the Copa in 1931, won the La Segunda title in 1932 and won their first and only La Liga title in 1935, with home form at Patronato key to the success.
Despite winning the league title, finances at the club were in a poor state and in 1936 the club reached an agreement with the Municipality to effectively swap Heliopolis and in return, the municipality took control of Patronato. The timing of the agreement could not have come at a worse time. Signed on 15 July 1936, the Spanish Civil War began 48 hours later and with it, fighting in the streets of Sevilla. The club offices were bombed, most of the staff fled abroad and membership dropped below a hundred. Peace arrived in the spring of 1939 and Betis finally had a chance to use Heliopolis. In the months leading up to its reopening, the club continued to use Patronato and also played a few games at Sevilla's Estadio Nervion. As for Patronato, this continued to be used as a football ground until 1974, before being demolished for garages for the local bus company, although the tennis club survives.
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| Betis "acquired" Heliopolis thanks to a generous swap |
The impact of war was particularly severe on Betis who were effectively broke, had few members and no quality players remaining from the championship winning side of four years earlier. It was certainly on a par with the plight of Barcelona and Real Oviedo, so it was a surprise that the club contested the 1939-40 season when it could have, like Oviedo requested a moratorium. The decision to play backfired and five years to the day that they won the league title, Betis was relegated. After a season consolidating in the second tier the club won its second La Segunda title in 1941-42, but the return to the top was short-lived and Betis finished the 42-43 season bottom of La Primera with just 2 wins in 26 matches. Back in La Segunda and two moderate finishes occurred in 43-44 and 44-45, but they were really just papering over the cracks. Betis was a club in decline and in 1946-47, just nine playing seasons after winning La Liga, the unthinkable happened and Betis was relegated to the Tercera.
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| After the famine came the flood. Submerged after the rains of 1948 |
There were many who thought that the trip to the Tercera was the result of a bad season and the club would bounce straight back, but in reality it was a sign of long-term decline which turned into a seven-season slog to get back to La Segunda. There were some near misses with defeats in the play-offs, but in the end it required a Tercera title to reclaim their spot in the second tier and with it, Betis became the first club to win the the championship at three different levels. A great deal of credit must go to President Manuel Ruiz Rodríguez, who steered the club through the desperate seasons in the third and nurtured good relationships with bigger clubs that helped Betis in the transfer market. With the club back in the second division, Rodríguez handed over the reins to Benito Villamarín and the next phase of the club's rise up the league began. In 1955-56 Betis finished second in the league but missed out in the play-offs. Two seasons later however, a third Segunda title was won and fifteen long years after last gracing La Primera, Betis was back. The stadium, now approaching 30 years of age needed a refit, and the shallow terraces and the north and south ends were replaced with more substantial structures in time for the 1958-59 season.
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| Happier times. Back in La Primera and both ends now developed |
Betis looked reasonably comfortable on their return to La Primera and a series of top half finished was capped in the 1963-64 season with a third place finish. By then Heliopolis had been purchased outright and renamed Estadio Benito Villamarin in honour of the chairman. Betis turned it into a fortress and during that successful 63-64 campaign won 12 of their 15 home matches, with the only reserve coming in a 2-3 defeat to Barcelona. The following season saw Betis play in Europe for the first time, but it was a short lived campaign with a first round defeat to Stade Francais 1-3 on aggregate. This Betis team was reaching the end of the road and so had President Villamarin, who stood down at the end of 1965. The 65-66 campaign was a tight affair, with only three points separating the bottom seven teams. Unfortunately for Betis home form deserted them and a porous defence made them easy prey on the road. The summer of 1966 saw the twin blows of relegation and the death of Benito Villamarin, who succumbed to cancer at the age of 49.
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| EBV in 1971 and work is under way on the North Terrace |
Over the next eight seasons, Betis switched between La Primera and La Segunda on five occasions and that air of change was matched off the pitch as well. Between 1971-73 the terraces at the north and south ends were upgraded and the corners filled in. 1975 saw the addition of a daring upper tier on the west side, with banks of green and white seats and a slender green cantilevered roof. Up to that point, everything in the stadium had been white.
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| EBV in 1977 and the west side has gained an upper tier and roof |
Betis won their first Copa del Rey in 1977, beating Athletic Bilbao on penalties, but a year later the club was back in La Segunda. Building continued however and in 1979 the east side was demolished and a new Tribuna was constructed. A second tier and propped roof was added to the East Tribuna in 1981, before an amphitheatre was built between the upper and lower tiers of the west stand in 1982. As well as additional seating, this housed new media facilities which were used when the stadium hosted two World Cup matches in 1982. By now, Betis was back in La Primera and three seasons into their longest ever run in the top flight. Fifth place was achieved in 83-84, before a slow decline and after ten seasons at the top, the inevitable relegation came at the end of the 1988-89 season.
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| The short lived East Tribuna. |
During the 1990's things quietened down on the building front, but things were anything but quiet elsewhere in the club. After a season long visit to La Primera in 91-92, Betis was back in La Segunda and to make matters worse, had to convert to a SAD, or Sports Limited Company by the end of the season. With finances tight and the threat of relegation to Segunda 2b a very real possibility, enter stage right Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, who guaranteed the funds and takes over ownership of the club. Promotion was won in season 93-94 and a year later Betis finished third in La Primera and qualified for the Uefa Cup. A relatively stable few seasons followed with an appearance in the 1997 Copa del Rey and regular football in Europe, before things began to unravel, Betis style.
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| Like an opened jewellery box, EBV in the mid 1980's |
Lopera had convinced the board that the stadium should be rebuilt and bear his name. Work started in April 1998 with the demolition of the north and east sides of the ground. The stadium would consist of three tiers on all four sides of the ground, set off with a roof, but to start with, the north and east sides would be built. The first tier was complete in September, but then disputes with the construction company meant the work dragged on until the two new sides were completed in late 1999. Whilst all this was going on off the pitch, Betis' fortunes on it were plummeting and at the end of the 1999-00 season Betis took their 52,000 capacity stadium back to La Segunda. One silver lining was that city rivals Sevilla FC also dropped into the second division.
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| April 1998 and the North Fonda & East Tribuna are history |
Both Betis and Sevilla FC made a quick return to La Primera and in Betis' case, a period of relative stability ensued. Steady league placings culminated in a fourth place finish and a second victory in the Copa del Rey in 2004-05. In truth though, Betis were borrowing heavily to acquire this success and development of the stadium had ground to a halt. The club celebrated its centenary in 2007 but with more departures than arrivals, the writing was on the wall. Relegation arrived on the final day of the 2008-09 season and with no money to invest, there would be no immediate return to the top. Manuel Ruiz de Lopera decided to sale up in July 2010, but any relief experienced by the Betis fans at his departure was short lived, for the man who stepped into his shoes was one Luis Oliver. Oliver is a man with a proven track record... of taking clubs to the brink of bankruptcy, as the fans of Cartagena FC and Xerez CD will testify. At this point the courts became involved and blocked Oliver's purchase of Lopera's shares and appointed former player Rafael Gordillo as an administrator. With all this turmoil going on at the club, Betis won promotion to La Primera for an eleventh time. With so much uncertainty surrounding the club, who knows what is next in the Betis story.
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| "It's alive! It's alive I tell you!" Frankenstein's stadium lives |
What of the stadium? Well after 10 years as an unfinished monument to the ego of Manuel Luiz Lopera, Betis fans voted in October 2010 to return the stadium to its former name. The Estadio Benito Villarmarin is essentially three stadiums joined together, rather unconvincingly it has to be said. Many stadiums, particularly in England, have been developed on a piecemeal basis, that is to say stand by stand, but do any create such a stark contrast as the Estadio Benito Viamarin? Individually, the stands are fine, especially the exterior detail which reflect Sevilla's Moorish past, but joined together and you have a stadium with a touch of the Dr Victor Frankenstein's. I would quickly add however, that this does not detract from the incredibly intense atmosphere the Betis fans generate, helped by tall amphitheatres on three sides. The current stadium set up is not one of my favourites, I much preferred 1980's version of EBV, with its balanced symmetry and its broad bands of green and white seats, but nothing lasts forever in this world, particularly Betis' top fight status.
Labels: 2a Segunda, Andalucia, LFP
