The promotion, Part 1: A photo is worth a thousand words
With promotion clinched, a whole generation of albinegros are tasting success for the first time.
How do you know what something tastes like if you’ve never experienced it before? The truth is, you don’t, and a generation of albinegro fans had been eating cardboard, and much worse, their whole life. You don’t know any better. You hear stories of the glory days with Del Bosque and Planelles, of cup finals, but how can you know what that feels like? How will you ever know that feels like?
Marc Guidotti was born in 1999. A socio since birth - some albinegro families even stop at Castalia on the way back from the hospital - he was five when Castellón were last promoted in 2005. For him, the main memories were being annoyed by the noise and a photo in the arms of goalkeeper Javier Oliva. That’s about what one is able to process at the age of five. However as Marc grew up, so did the pain of being an albinegro.
A 10-year-old Marc would definitely remember finishing rock bottom of the second division in 2010, 13 points worse than the team in 21st place. An 11-year-old Marc would definitely remember the team finishing tenth in the third tier the year after, but being relegated again due to unpaid wages. He would also probably remember fans protesting in front of the town hall at the time, demanding solutions and an end to the nightmare.
Seven years came and went, with Castellón stuck in the mud of the fourth tier. At one point, they even had to leave Castalia, relegated to the Estadio Javier Marquina in El Grao, Castellón’s beach area, and where the B team now plays. They played against the likes of Recambios Colon (the team of a company that makes spare parts for tractors), Villarreal C (the third team of their biggest rivals), Muro (not even the biggest team in Alcoi, a town of 58,000 people). Under the impetus of a consortium lead by hometown hero Pablo Hernández, the team returned to the third tier in 2018, and there was light at the end of the tunnel.
However fate would still continue to tease Castellón, as they lead the Segunda B in 2020 when the world shut down. They were hardly there on merit - Villarreal B fielded an ineligible player in their game which awarded them the three points - but it was enough, and they scraped through a makeshift playoff to secure their place in the second division.
Ask the fans though, and many will tell you that it didn’t count. Have the promotion and the season in the second division, the football gods said, but you won’t earn it on the pitch and there will be no fans. And in such circumstances, the next season was predictable - straight back down as the second worst team in the league.
The slide continued, as the club finished 13th in the newly-formed third-tier Primera RFEF, and fans didn’t know if they would survive the summer. It was 2011 all over again. However, as they say, Audentes Fortuna luvat. Fortune favours the brave. And Castellón fans certainly had to be.
Bob Voulgaris might not yet consider himself the thirteenth Greek god, but Castellón fans will feel he has made significant progress to Mount Olympus since taking over in the summer of 2022. He’s at least reached saviour status. When he arrived, the players’ gym was located behind the seats at Castalia and the training facility at Oropesa was a few empty pitches. A mere glimpse of the same places today will tell you that this is a very different club. The gym is state of the art, every piece of player data is collected and analyzed, and the training facility features offices, a cafeteria with a nutritionist and computers loaded with game and training footage. There are plans being drawn up to build a bigger, more permanent complex in the future and a lease agreement on the stadium with plans for renovations is pending.
All of this Marc has witnessed from the inside. The dream opportunity to work for his boyhood club became reality in 2020, initially as an intern before becoming the head of press in February 2022. The boy who found himself on the pitch as an unaware five-year-old the last time the club got promoted in earnest and followed his club in the depths of the fourth tier is now leading the charge in the press department, translating for Dick Schreuder and spending most of his waking hours with the team. That’s how he ended up in the arms of the Dutchman on the pitch in Murcia on Saturday, after Gonzalo Crettaz saved Pedro León’s last-minute penalty to give Castellón the win and ultimately promotion, after Recreativo Granada’s thrashing of Córdoba the next day.
Marc’s story is fantastic, but the image from the Estadio Enrique Roca is symbolic of something more. It’s a team delivering an experience to a generation that’s never felt it before. It’s uncharted territory which comes with its own excitement and dreams of what could come next.
There’s at least a generation of albinegros that went through something of an identity crisis. During the dark days in the fourth tier, how could you identify with a club that was being so mismanaged and abused? How could you not want to distance yourself from that kind of toxic environment?
But moments like Murcia banish those memories to a distant past. Moments like Monday, when the main square was a sea of albinegro, reidentify the city with the team. I look out from my balcony as I write this and there are three Castellón flags that weren’t there a week ago. If you went to school in Castellón on Monday not wearing albinegro, you were probably in a minority. How cool is it to be a young football fan in Castellón right now, knowing that, if you listen to Bob’s plans, the party is only just beginning?
In 2020 there were no fans. Even in 2005, the promotion was via playoff and the away goals rule, a sufferfest that albinegro fans know so well. This time, fans will have their matchday paella, enjoy three meaningless but festive games to close out the league, and then look forward to a potential game against Deportivo La Coruña for a trophy. They will know that their squad is largely made of players who are good enough for the next level, even before any summer signings.
It’s also the right to believe in getting to La Liga, more than just fantasize about it. For a teenager like Marc watching Castellón lose to the likes of Alzira 10 years ago, it must be somewhat surreal to see playing Real Madrid on a regular basis go from pipe dream to realistic goal.
For a young Castellón fan, stories of La Liga wins and cup runs no longer seem like a distant story your grandparents or parents told you about once. It seems like a story that one day you might be able to tell your kids about. And that tastes amazing.