The pioneers
The club was born in 1939 after inheriting Olympic’s Cestista activity. The agricultural lawyer García Espinosa de los Monteros acts as the first president as head of a group of enthusiasts including Paco Pérez Llombet, Armando Sigut, Emilio González Díaz de Celis or Mateo Arbelo, teacher, member of the Royal Hesperides and the Orfeón La Paz.
The predecessors
The birth of the Canary Islands was preceded in the 30s by the activity of other teams such as Youth Laguna, then called Catholic Youth of La Laguna, which starts in 32nd and other clubs with Anglo-Saxon nomenclature, such as Lord Clive, Manchester CB or the Olympic BBC itself, germ of the aurinegra entity. The parties of then had the plaza del Cristo as a stage.
The beginnings
The Canarias was initially a village team, a modest and humble club that got ahead thanks to the anonymous effort of several key figures in the end (Juan Ríos Tejera, Juan Miranda …), without whose contribution it would now be impossible to explain the longevity of an entity who just turned 70 years old. The Canarian team, then surnamed “Education and Rest (EyD)”, played their games as host on Sundays at noon in fields bounded by ropes.
The fields
The esplanade of land located in the Plaza de Santo Domingo hosted the first matches of the Canarias, which then moved to La Alhóndiga, track located next to the current consistory. The boards, brought from the Peninsula, would be inherited by the Anchieta court. And Anchieta, first of land and then cement, gave way to the tracks of the University of La Laguna before the move to the Luther King School in 76, and the subsequent transfer from the year 86 to the Juan Pavilion Ríos Tejera, penultimate Canarian court until the recent arrival at the Santiago Martín Pavilion, in the summer of 2010.
The venues
The Canarian leadership originally held its meetings in the former Casa Sindical, on Calle de La Carrera, at the height of the current Bar Cañadas. Then he also had one of the two booths of La Alhóndiga (the other belonged to the Youth), also used the headquarters of the Catholic Library, owned by Juan Miranda, in the Plaza de La Catedral; and also had its offices in the Anchieta court, before moving to the Calle del Agua, current Viana street, to also pass through Osorio Ortega (now Juan de Vera) and Juan Ríos Tejera (still the branch headquarters) until the recent transfer to Santiago Martín.
The local leagues
The insularity was paid once more expensive of the account in this sport, so the Canarias lived 36 years in the anonymity of local leagues. As happened in football, the competition systems did not help in anything to access national leagues. The Canarian team starred in several failed promotions in the 60s and early 70s. However, there was a fact that would change their destiny.
… and then Pepe arrived – The connoisseurs say that the arrival of Pepe Cabrera to the aurinegra entity represented a very significant qualitative leap, a key push for that modest town team to lay the foundations of a professional club that years later would be installed in the city. elite and would become one of the great animators of the ACB.
To the fourth was the expired
Up to three failed promotions delayed the long-awaited promotion. The Pineda, in the 71-72 campaign; the Breogán, in the 72-73 and an insufficient fourth place in the liguilla of ascent disputed in Seville in the 73-74, postponed the exit of the anonymity. It was from the 75-76 campaign, with the creation of the Second Unique Group, when the Canarias finally competed in a national league for their condition of regional runner-up of the previous year.
And from there to the elite
Along the way, the club reinforced its structure, not without hardship and a lot of work involved. And from there would come the three promotions to the elite (two with Pablo Casado on the bench and the last with Hernández Rizo). The Canarias would accumulate up to eight seasons in the top flight, six appearances in the Copa del Rey and two in the Korac Cup.
A glorious team
The stay of Rizo on the bench, coinciding with the presidency of Santiago Martin, marked a glorious era, that of the Carmelo Cabrera, Germán González, Salva Díez, Eddie Phillips, Mike Harper and company, the same that brought two sixth consecutive posts in the ACB League.
The great crisis and the rebirth
Then the descent would arrive in Ferrol, in the 90-91 course; the decline until starting again from scratch; the failed fusion of Tenerife basketball in the early nineties and the subsequent resurgence of aurinegro in national categories. The same resurgence, that after the promotions to First Autonomic, EBA, LEB II and Adecco Gold, follows now in march.
The return to the elite
The victory against Lleida consecrated, 21 years later, the rise and presence of the Canarias in the highest category of national basketball. The 2012 one became one of the historical years for the Aurinegros, who led by Alejandro Martínez could also enjoy the achievement of the first Copa Príncipe for the Canarian showcases against Burgos. Afterwards, the efforts would come, both for the conversion into a Public Limited Sports Company and to settle among the best years of work to escape the suffering of the decline and ensure, season by season, the place in the ACB.
The fruits of so much underpinning were waiting a while, but reported hitherto unimaginable achievements.
The first international titles
The arrival of the Basque coach Txus Vidorreta finally confirmed the important step forward to ambition the playoff places for the title and, above all, European competitions. After the club’s brief international tour of the late 70’s and 80’s, the entity was enrolled, almost 20 years later, in the first edition of the newly created FIBA Basketball Champions League and achieved a historic milestone: to win the title before his fans, as organizer of the Final to 4 disputed in the pavilion of Los Majuelos. A glass that contributed, in addition to the prestige and the definitive recognition to the Canarian project, the possibility of competing for the first time the Intercontinental Cup of the FIBA.The victory against Guaros de Lara of Venezuela, candidate after winning the Copa de las Americas, confirmed the growth of the Canarias Basketball Club in the elite of national and international basketball and the position of the organization before a future full of new challenges and ambitious sports objectives to fulfill in the years to come.
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