The Spanish play rugby! Who knew? In this football-obsessed country, rugby union is so far down the sport pecking order you’d be forgiven for failing to notice it at all. But here in Villajoyosa, rugby is alive and kicking.
CR La Vila is actually one of the dozen best teams in Spain – quite something for a little town like ours – and a home game at their stadium is a great way of spending a Sunday afternoon.
It costs just €5 to see a match at the Estadio del Pantano, a few minutes drive out of town on the road inland to Orxeta. Kids under 12 get in free. The ground is surprisingly modern; I’m guessing more than a few clubs back in the UK would love the facilities they have here.
The crowd is usually a friendly mix of local rugby fans and expat or tourist Brits getting their rugby fix. Buy yourself a beer or something off the barbecue and enjoy the match.
For UK rugby followers, watching a game here in the sunshine certainly beats the biting wind and driving rain back home. And the quality of the rugby is not bad either.
The first team, a mixture of home grown players with a sprinkling of overseas talent, mostly from Argentina, plays in the top flight of Spanish rugby, the División de Honor.
Competing in the big league hasn’t been easy: La Vila were newly promoted in 2017/8 and struggled to survive, but they managed to avoid the drop. There have been a couple of wins so far this season, and La Vila have picked up enough bonus points to keep them out of the drop zone.
But the game has a firm footing here; the 2018 European Champions Cup final was held in Bilbao, in the heartland of Spanish rugby.
The national men’s side – Los Leones – plays in the second tier of European rugby, one below the Six Nations, against the likes of Russia and Georgia. In March 2018, they came within an ace of qualifying for the 2019 World Cup.
They were denied, in their final qualifying match against Belgium, by the worst display of refereeing I have ever seen. If Spain lost, Romania would qualify for the World Cup. The ref and his assistants were…you guessed it…Romanian. As is the president of Rugby Europe.
Spain did lose, 10-18 (they’d hammered Belgium in the first leg 30-0).
The inquiry that followed was, frankly, an absolute farce. To add insult to injury, five Spanish players who protested against the referee after the final whistle were banned for a total of 121 weeks. And this is how the bosses of world rugby expect to grow the sport in Spain? Don’t make me laugh!
The Spanish women’s team – Las Leonas – have fared rather better. They won the Rugby Europe championship (one step below the Six Nations) in March 2018 and are ranked 10th in the world, some distance ahead of the men.
CR La Vila runs teams for women and a range of age groups, as well as hosting an international sevens tournament at the end of the season.
© Guy Pelham 2018
