MAJADAHONDA
THE HISTORY OF THE CLUB
PROMOTION TO 2ªB
After two failed attempts, Rayo Majadahonda wanted to make good the popular saying: "The third time is the charm." His objective was to be promoted to Second B and for this he left the sports project in the hands of José Miguel Polo, a coach who was endorsed by great seasons in other teams in the category and who had the experience demanded by a team with the great poster favorite. The bar, which had been set by his two predecessors in office, could not be higher.
The 96/97 season began, as was customary, with the City of Majadahonda Trophy in September. This time with the visit of Real Madrid B. A match in which the presence of five of the members of the first team, Chendo, Alvaro, Guti, Petrovic and Fernando Sanz, was announced to reinforce the subsidiary and as a form of Fabio Capello to bill them for their poor performance. Finally, the Italian coach decided not to carry out that punishment and left the game without those players. Despite this, the match was brilliant and will be remembered for the young Esteban Cambiasso's goalscoring debut in Spain. He was only responsible for turning a game that Rayo dominated 2-1 but ended up winning Real Madrid B 2-4 and with three goals from the Argentine player.
With the same base as in recent seasons, and only three relevant absences (Higuera, Jorge and Méndez), but well covered with the new incorporations, José Miguel Polo began working in September with a team of only twenty players, willing to achieve all the objectives. And it did not start badly. On the fifth matchday, after defeating Colmenar in La Corredera, Rayo took the lead. Four victories and a draw served to lead the group, but nevertheless his game in those games, even winning them, was far from corresponding to a team called to lead the group.
So much so that the Ray began to suffer a dangerous slump in terms of results. The former leader arrived at the Coslada field on matchday 14 in tenth place and what is worse on a dangerous downhill. José Miguel Polo, in a courageous decision, reached an agreement with the Board of Directors to leave the team. The coach left the Club like that and left the door open for the return of Antonio Iriondo. The then Technical Director of the School began his second stage as coach of Rayo. He did it provisionally and only if the results were consistent in the first days would he continue. Otherwise, another coach would be sought so as not to "burn" a man from the Club. But it was not necessary. Antonio Iriondo knew how to rebuild the ship. The first three games under his charge resulted in two defeats and a draw. The team hit bottom on Matchday 17, wandering around 13th closer to relegation than their early season goals. All those numbers changed with the arrival of the second round.
When Rayo Majadahonda defeats Móstoles in El Soto, pessimism turns into optimism. The team was heading back to the top positions and what is more important, thanks to a commitment to good football. Already on matchday 30, Rayo reached fourth position, which gave the right to play off and seemed ready for anything, even to revalidate the title.
In between these good results, the Board of Directors begins its first contacts with Atlético de Madrid. The interest of the rojiblanco club, Majadahonda City Council and CF Rayo Majadahonda in signing a beneficial collaboration agreement for the three parties began to take shape in the offices, while the team won on the field.
In the absence of two days to go, five clubs were playing for the promotion league and the title. Between Santa Ana, first with 72 points and Sanse, fifth with 68, were Alcalá, Majadahonda and Leganés B. On the penultimate matchday, Rayo defeated Parla and took the lead for the final matchday. In addition, that leadership entailed, according to rumors later confirmed with the federative regulations, the mathematical ascent if, as expected, the descent from Second A of Real Madrid B dragged Real Madrid C to Third. The vacant place in Second B would be occupied the following season by the champion of group Vil de Tercera.
This title and promotion was celebrated in the magical game of Orcasitas. An unforgettable morning in which the locals played their demotion, the champion title was revalidated and with it Rayo played without the official confirmation of their promotion, which arrived in June when the team had not achieved it. through the league. It was the Royal Spanish Football Federation, who, in application of the Regulations, decided that Rayo Majadahonda 97/98 would be a Second Division B team. But the whole matter and the delay in confirmation made him lose concentration and he was never comfortable in a League in which he did not achieve good results in sport either, only beating Viveiro. Promotion was assured even before playing the league. In that match, Rayo formed with: Mejías, Ralf, Pablos, Campos, Del Rey; Juan Carlos, Alberto, Ballester, Arroyo; Chub and Infants. A historic team for a historic date. The agreement with the City Council and Atlético de Madrid had already been forged, so the Board of Directors was aware that it was the best time to make the leap in the category. However, despite the promotion being a fact, the club had to play the playoff as champion of group Vil and did so against Viveiro, Palencia and, again, Caudal de Mieres.
At the end of that season, as happened at the beginning of the Club, the team managed to formalize the federative registration of a subsidiary in the Regional category, specifically in the First Regional. Rayo Majadahonda B began its journey knowing the importance of its work as a bridge team between the quarry and the first formation of the Club.
AGREEMENT WITH ATLÉTICO DE MADRID
Rayo Majadahonda and Atlético de Madrid have been walking hand in hand since the end of the 96/97 season, although the agreement did not become effective until the following season. A collaboration agreement that was also modified at the beginning of the 00/01 campaign and that, day by day, proves to be advantageous for both institutions.
It all started with the construction of Cerro del Espino. The quality of the installation drew attention to football in Madrid and more specifically to the rojiblanca directive. The team had been invited to the official inauguration and from that same day the idea began to be forged that Majadahonda could be the municipality where to install its Sports City. At that time, Atlético de Madrid lacked a facility in which to develop its quarry project and Cerro del Espino could be the ideal location, after the project had not gone ahead in other towns such as Getafe.
The first step in this relationship occurs without the presence of our Club. Atlético de Madrid asks the Majadahonda City Council for an administrative transfer for fifty years, something that was completely impossible because it corresponded to Rayo Majadahonda, four in four seasons.
This circumstance and the good work of rapprochement that our vice president Carlos Ballester had already started at the dispatch level, made it possible for the open negotiation between Atlético and the Municipal Council to be expanded with the entry into the negotiations of Rayo Majadahonda.
The first official contact between both Boards of Directors takes place at Vicente Calderón, with a personal interview between Miguel Angel Gil Marín, General Director of Atlético de Madrid, and Carlos Ballester. After this first contact, in which there is already talk of the interest of both clubs in reaching a collaboration agreement, a second appointment arrives in which the president of Rayo Majadahonda, Enrique Vedla, joins. At this meeting, the parties reach an agreement in principle, which would later take shape with the signing of the Agreement between the three institutions. This occurs on May 13, 1997. This contract, once signed, is presented for ratification at the Members' Assembly in September 1997 and ratified by an absolute majority. Thus began the close relationship between the two clubs.
In this first Agreement it was stipulated that the rojiblanco team had to invest around 600 million pesetas in the Sports Complex, taking charge of the management and maintenance costs of the Cerro del Espino Facility, something that was an advantage for the municipal coffers. Atlético de Madrid undertook to improve the complex: expansion of the capacity of the main field, remodeling of changing rooms, construction of four grass pitches and three more dirt pitches, a players' residence and a new office module. In addition, the improvement project included the urbanization of the parking lot and access to the field. In exchange, it would receive a 50-year assignment of the 60,000 square meters necessary for the construction of its long-awaited Sports City, which is still in process and with some pending works. In this initial project, it was foreseen that the three fields of land would be used for the Rayo Majadahonda School to develop its work in them, but these were never built. Some complaints from environmental groups, considering that these fields were going to mean an environmental disorder, overturned what was originally thought and modified the Facility.
This fact forced the agreement to be changed and the creation of the La Oliva Municipal Complex, on land located about 200 meters from Cerro del Espino and whose construction was carried out by Atlético de Madrid. It was a difficult situation, due again to the complicated terrain, but necessary for the Rayo Majadahonda School to have a place to maintain its work with Independencia del Atlético de Madrid and its own lower categories. Work together and with help, but independently.
Another of the agreements reached was to take, quickly, to the expanded Cerro del Espino the meetings of the Atlético subsidiary. A team that played in Second Division A and that made it possible for Cerro del Espino to be the scene of professional soccer matches since the 98/99 season. Circumstance that made it possible for Rayo Majadahonda members to see teams of great tradition in national football pass by for free, in our municipality and in our field.
The union also entailed a series of considerations in which our Club benefited, not only from the institutional and economic support of an entity such as the rojiblanca, but also from the solvency that the agreement guaranteed to Rayo Majadahonda for its continuity as a team with aspirations within the Community of Madrid and Madrid football.
Furthermore, this support does not entail any type of affiliate relationship. In other words, both Institutions maintain their independence and are located as completely separate and distinct clubs, only linked by an economic and sports collaboration agreement that is advantageous for both Atlético de Madrid and Rayo Majadahonda.
An important modification of these considerations derived from the first Agreement came at the end of the 1999/2000 season. At that time, the Club's Board of Directors renegotiated the bases of the agreement with the rojiblanca entity, in order to achieve greater sports collaboration with the first team. In this way, the vast majority of the players who in later years played with Rayo Majadahonda's first formation came from the Atlético de Madrid quarry.
The good relationship between the two entities ensured that Rayo Majadahonda, while maintaining its own Identity as a Club, was in some way within the Athletic Organization Chart of Atlético de Madrid as regards the pyramidal question of lower categories. This new situation not only allows economic relief, but also guarantees a sporting level with aspirations season after season.
THE CERRO DEL ESPINO
Cerro del Espino undoubtedly marks the history of Rayo Majadahonda. From its creation to the current state of the playing field and the surrounding fields, many things have happened, which deserved a separate chapter. And it is that never a club was so tied to a field of game as the Rayo Majadahonda.
The name of Cerro del Espino comes from how the land where it is located was formerly known, on the old road from Majadahonda to Pozuelo. A hill, which has one of the best views of Madrid from the northwest, where the Majariegos have their, already known throughout Spain, soccer field. This has been the place where the history of Rayo Majadahonda as a federated club has developed. And although there was also history in the early years where it was played in various fields around the town (La Laguna, Puerta de Madrid, Las Villas or Mapfre), it was not until 1976, when it was decided to prepare and fence the playing field of Cerro del Espino. It is the moment when Rayo Majadahonda begins its journey as a federated club.
The essential requirement of the Federation was that the local team had a fenced field where they could play their matches. A few sheets of wood around the pitch and some white booths that served as changing rooms were enough to start shooting. The field, at that time, was already surrounded by a railing that limited the regulatory margins.
Those who played there say that the original terrain was very steep and that it cost him to balance it properly. In spite of the fact that the Town Hall surveyor worked hard so that that area full of broom could be used as a soccer field and the team could settle once and for all in its own field. It was in the 75/76 season.
Even with this, the rains and the lack of a tribune caused the first complaints during the initial years, as well as the absence of an electric light turret that the City Council refused to install and without which training could not be carried out. . In this way the tug of war with municipal officials began. There was installation, but who was in charge of improving it?
At the beginning of the 80s, the electric turret arrived, which was accompanied by small improvements always made by the members, managers and supporters of the Club.
Nobody had any qualms about taking the wheelbarrow if necessary or digging a ditch for any need. Helping the club in a selfless way working weekends at Cerro del Espino became a must. The most complicated tasks were either carried out by the City Council or the friends of the Club were forced to do them for reasonable prices or altruistically. Thus, for example, a mandatory moat for the changing rooms or a holding fence was built behind the north goal.
Football in Majadahonda was growing and when they went up to the Third Division the installation began to be evident. The promotion match against Móstoles marked the final decision by the City Council to build a stand. Room was made on one of the sides of the field - in front of the old water tank and the old changing rooms - to be able to locate a stand with capacity for 1,000 people, which was not covered at first but a year later it was remodeled so that, at least it protected the spectators from the frequent rains. Also when covering the tribune, a small press turret was raised, just behind the north goal, and a room for the Club offices, where previously the changing rooms that happened to be in the south corner of the field had been located.
They were small, but important renovations for a team that wanted to consolidate in Third Division and that represented a municipality in constant growth, not only in terms of population but also urban planning. With the arrival of the offices at Cerro del Espino, the club also changed many customs. Until that season 87/88, Rayo had been forced to open its offices temporarily in Calle Doctor Fleming, 2. These were inaugurated when the team was promoted to Third, thus ending the meetings at the Bar Casa Mariano. This establishment had been, until that date, the headquarters of our Club in a disinterested way. There a good part of the History of Rayo Majadahonda was forged.
With the improvements in the field and already under the presidency of Enrique Vedia, what at that time seemed like the manna for modest clubs began to explode: outdoor advertising. The agreement with the City Council to permit the placement of large fences outside the field was an important source of resources for the Club, which was finally able to take economic advantage of the already ancient facility. And it is that the growth of Majadahonda and the neighboring towns continued and the best soccer team in the area started the 90s in one of the worst facilities and very far from what a city like Majadahonda was supposed to be.
With the decade of the nineties well started, the team began to prosper in sport. And always in the minds of the members, fans and the Board of Directors there was the but of the installation. Thus, after many projects and a long wait, which seemed eternal to more than one, Rayo Majadahonda left Cerro del Espino in January 1994 to start some works, which would end with a new installation.
It was a long and transitional stage. The first team played in Las Rozas, made a pilgrimage to train, zero had its happy ending with the new Cerro del Espino. A modern field that quickly attracted attention for its design and that was already in keeping with the team. The playing field became grass and two dirt fields were also inaugurated, annexed to the main one, but with separate changing rooms so that the School could comfortably carry out its work.
The Installation was officially inaugurated against Atlético de Madrid in September 1994, but before that it had already served to celebrate the first sporting successes with the first classification for the play-off for promotion to Second B.
The new field attracted so much attention that very soon, just two seasons after its premiere, Atlético de Madrid asked about the possibility of expanding the Facility to build its Sports City in Majadahonda. The relationship with the rojiblanco club began, which was going to transform the Cerro del Espino again, which is currently still in the construction phase. Much more modernized than then and with greater services.
Although the first team plays its official matches in the main field of Cerro del Espino - coinciding with the Atlético de Madrid and Atlético Féminsa subsidiary - the School and the quarry formations do so in a new facility. The Municipal de La Oliva, a sports complex that was built by Atlético de Madrid on land attached to Cerro del Espino, in order for the Rayo Majadahonda Municipal Soccer School to develop its quarry work.