Rayo Cantabria

Rayo Cantabria, formerly known as Real Racing Club de Santander B is the reserve team of Racing de Santander, a Spanish football team based in Santander, in the autonomous community of Cantabria.

Rayo Cantabria

Full name	Real Racing Club de Santander B, S.A.D.
Founded	1926
Ground	La Albericia, Santander, Cantabria, Spain
Capacity	600
President	Manuel Higuera S.A.
Head coach	José Enrique Rodríguez 'Pitu'
League	3ª – Group 3
2018–19	5th
Home colours Away colours

Not to be confused with Deportivo Rayo Cantabria.

Founded in 1926 as a separate club, affiliated with Racing de Santander from 1951 and incorporated formally into the professional club's structure in 1993, the team currently plays in Tercera División, holding home games at La Albericia, with a capacity of 600 spectators.

History

Rayo Cantabria was founded in 1926 as Gimnástica de Miranda,[1] later being renamed Sociedad Deportiva Rayo Cantabria.[2] Having competed independently in the Cantabrian Regional Championship, in 1946 they were promoted to the third tier of Spanish football, the old Tercera División, for the first time; the following campaign, they faced the biggest local club Racing de Santander (or Real Santander as they were known at the time), Rayo being relegated and Racing promoted. In the 1950–51 Tercera División season, Rayo came up against the Racing youth team, Juventud RS with both entering the relegating playoffs; Juventud went down and folded soon after, and from that time Rayo became the Racing farm team.[1]

They went on to spent 20 consecutive years at the third level, coming close to promotion on a few occasions,[1] also performing the important task in developing young local players, some of whom (including Paco Gento, Marquitos, Ico Aguilar, Pedro Zaballa, Vicente Miera and Nando Yosu) went on to great success.[3] They temporarily disassociated from Racing in the 1968–69 and 1969–70 seasons when both were in the same division.[1] After league restructuring in the mid 1970s, Rayo played just one further season at the third level (now Segunda División B) – that was in 1987–88, and they were relegated.[1] Further elite players produced via a spell in the team included Tuto Sañudo, Juan Carlos, Manolo Preciado, Pedro Munitis and José María Ceballos.[3]

In 1993 the original Rayo was dissolved in a national move to formally absorb affiliated teams into the professional clubs' structure, and Racing de Santander B took its place.[2] A new Rayo Cantabria, who started playing as an independent club in the regional leagues from 1993,[3] was also affiliated to Racing for four seasons, from 2003–04 to 2006–07.[1] Racing B have since played nine seasons in Segunda B, lasting no more than two years in any single spell at that level; they would usually meet Dep. Rayo when relegated back to the fourth tier, and finished below their 'sibling' club on three occasions.

In 2018, previous manager Ángel Meñaca was recognised by the city of Santander for his lifetime efforts and contributions towards the running of both the original Rayo up to 1993 and the 'new' Rayo from then on.[4]

In summer 2019, Racing de Santander successfully applied to have their B-team renamed as Rayo Cantabria going forward;[2][3] the other Rayo club had been removed from the league a year earlier due to unpaid debts.[5][6]

Club names

• Gimnástica de Miranda (1926–1931)[1]
• Rayo Sport de Miranda (1931–1941)
• Sociedad Deportiva Rayo Cantabria (1941–1993)
• Racing de Santander B (1993–2019)
• Rayo Cantabria (2019–)[3]

Season to season

• As farm team

Season Tier Division Place Copa del Rey 1946/47 3 3ª 4th 1947/48 3 3ª 13th 2nd round 1948/49 4 Regional — 1949/50 3 3ª 17th 1950/51 3 3ª 16th 1951/52 3 3ª 3rd 1952/53 3 3ª 13th 1953/54 3 3ª 7th 1954/55 3 3ª 5th 1955/56 3 3ª 5th 1956/57 3 3ª 9th 1957/58 3 3ª 3rd 1958/59 3 3ª 2nd 1959/60 3 3ª 7th 1960/61 3 3ª 1st 1961/62 3 3ª 4th 1962/63 3 3ª 7th 1963/64 3 3ª 9th 1964/65 3 3ª 8th 1965/66 3 3ª 2nd

Season Tier Division Place Copa del Rey 1966/67 3 3ª 5th 1967/68 3 3ª 9th 1968/69 3 3ª 14th 1969/70 3 3ª 17th 1st round 1970/71 4 Regional — 1971/72 4 Regional — 1972/73 4 Regional — 1973/74 3 3ª 18th 2nd round 1974/75 4 Regional — 1975/76 4 Regional — 1976/77 4 Regional — 1977/78 4 3ª 16th 3rd round 1978/79 4 3ª 6th 1979/80 4 3ª 10th 1980/81 4 3ª 18th 1981/82 5 Reg. Pref. 1st 1982/83 4 3ª 4th 1983/84 4 3ª 17th 2nd round 1984/85 4 3ª 5th 1985/86 4 3ª 4th 2nd round

Season Tier Division Place Copa del Rey 1986/87 4 3ª 1st 2nd round 1987/88 3 2ªB 19th 2nd round 1988/89 4 3ª 3rd 1st round 1989/90 4 3ª 2nd

Season Tier Division Place Copa del Rey 1990/91 4 3ª 5th 1991/92 4 3ª 9th 1992/93 4 3ª 2nd

• As reserve team

Season Tier Division Place 1993/94 4 3ª 2nd 1994/95 4 3ª 1st 1995/96 4 3ª 2nd 1996/97 4 3ª 2nd 1997/98 3 2ªB 17th 1998/99 4 3ª 1st 1999/00 4 3ª 3rd 2000/01 3 2ªB 17th 2001/02 4 3ª 2nd 2002/03 3 2ªB 11th 2003/04 3 2ªB 17th 2004/05 4 3ª 1st 2005/06 3 2ªB 8th 2006/07 3 2ªB 20th 2007/08 4 3ª 2nd 2008/09 3 2ªB 14th 2009/10 3 2ªB 17th 2010/11 4 3ª 3rd 2011/12 4 3ª 3rd 2012/13 3 2ªB 17th

Season Tier Division Place 2013/14 4 3ª 8th 2014/15 4 3ª 3rd 2015/16 4 3ª 3rd 2016/17 4 3ª 5th 2017/18 4 3ª 5th 2018/19 4 3ª 5th

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• 9 seasons in Segunda División B
• 51 seasons in Tercera División

Current squad

As of 31 July 2017

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player — GK  ESP Adrián Peón — GK  BUL Iván Rumenov — DF  ESP Pablo Bolado — DF  ESP Borja Ares — DF  ESP Javier Gómez — DF  ESP Miguel Goñi — DF  ESP Jerin Ramos — DF  ESP Chus Puras — DF  ESP Adrián Zorrilla — DF  ESP Íñigo Sáinz-Maza — MF  ESP Jaime Hoyuela — MF  ESP Darío Sánchez — MF  ESP Javier Turrado

No. Pos. Nation Player — MF  ESP Raúl Gutiérrez — MF  ESP Víctor Badiola — FW  ESP Daniel Mendicute — FW  ESP Jorge Somavilla — FW  ESP Carlos Gallo — FW  ESP Ángel Pardo — FW  ESP Diego Rozas — FW  ESP Gonzalo Peña — FW  ESP Raúl Tirilonte — FW  ARG Matías Aquino — FW  ESP Pablo Goñi — FW  ESP Mario Soberón

Honours

• Tercera División (3rd tier): 1960–61
• Tercera División (4th tier): 1986–87, 1994–95, 1998–99, 2004–05
• Copa Federación de España: 1998–99

Related teams

• Deportivo Rayo Cantabria

References

1. Rayo Cantabria La Futbolteca (in Spanish)
2. El Racing B volverá a ser el Rayo Cantabria (Racing B will be Rayo Cantabria again), Aqui Hay Pelotas, 20 June 2019 (in Spanish)
3. "El filial racinguista adopta oficialmente la denominación 'Rayo Cantabria'" [The racinguista subsidiary officially adopts the designation 'Rayo Cantabria'] (in Spanish). Racing de Santander. 3 July 2019.
4. Santander premia a los jóvenes deportistas más destacados de 2017 y reconoce a Ángel Meñaca (Santander rewards the most outstanding young athletes of 2017 and recognizes Ángel Meñaca), Santander.es, 26 September 2018 (in Spanish)
5. El Rayo Cantabria se queda fuera de la competición oficial (Rayo Cantabria stays out of the official competition), El Diario Montañés, 30 June 2018 (in Spanish)
6. El Rayo Cantabria pide amparo a ProLiga (Rayo Cantabria asks ProLiga for protection), ProLiga, 3 July 2018 (in Spanish)

External links

• Racing de Santander official website (in Spanish)
• Futbolme team profile (in Spanish)