Cádiz home new name wipe out war memories

Article posted by Coliseum, July 1^st, 2021

Image: espanaestadios.com

LaLiga club Cádiz Club de Fútbol’s (Spain) residence – Ramón de Carranza – has been renamed Estadio Nuevo Mirandilla – following a near year long process to remove the name of a figure connected to the Spanish Civil War fought from 1936 to 1939.

‘Spain’s News’ stated that the stadium, owned by the Ayuntamiento de Cádiz (City Hall of Cádiz), has been known as Estadio Ramón de Carranza since it opened in 1955 but a process was launched last year to rename the venue in keeping with Spain’s Law of Historical Memory and the Law of Democratic Memory of Andalusia.

The laws were drawn up with the main objective of recognizing victims on both sides of the Spanish Civil War, as well as granting rights to the victims and the descendants of victims of the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

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Cádiz Club de Fútbol, S.A.D., known simply as Cádiz, is a Spanish professional football club based in Cádiz, Andalusia (Spain). Founded in 1910, the club competes in the LaLiga, holding home games at the Nuevo Mirandilla.

The 25,033-capacity Nuevo Mirandilla is a football stadium in Cádiz, Spain. The stadium is the home ground of Cádiz CF. The stadium was originally inaugurated as Estadio Ramón de Carranza on September 3^rd, 1955. It has since then been completely rebuilt twice.

LaLiga is the men’s top professional football division of the Spanish football league system.

‘Spain’s News’ further stated that recently the people of Cádiz in Spain were able to vote among the eight options that were selected from few proposals received to find a new name for the stadium, in a participatory process initiated by the Cádiz City Council.

Through the voting process, it was decided to go by the name of ‘Nuevo Mirandilla’ for the venue with a 25.8 percent of the votes going in favor of ‘Nuevo Mirandilla’ to the rest of the names.

The second name which got most votes was ‘Silver Cup’, with 17.5 percent of votes going for this name.

In confirming the name change, Councilor for Democratic Memory, Martín Vila, informed that the Cádiz City Council initiated the process of renaming the stadium in the year 2020, as it referred to Ramón de Carranza, “a character who participated in the 1936 coup, who was closely linked to the Franco dictatorship and who actively contributed to the purge policy carried out by the regime in Cádiz”.

A process was then started so that the people of Cádiz could themselves propose, advise and vote on a new name for the facility. The first phase of drawing up potential new monikers ran from July 27^th to August 10^th last year, with eight names decided on – Ciudad de Cádiz, La Pepa, Gades, Bahía de Cádiz, Gadir, Nuevo Mirandilla, Tacita de Plata, and De La Laguna.

However, the entire exercise was hit by various setbacks, delays and boycotts, both due to the COVID-19 scourge and also administrative issues such as a massive cyberattack by bots that automatically generated votes in the first election, which was ultimately annulled for breaches of the Data Protection Law.

Finally, a vote was conducted from June 14^th-20^th through which all people of an eligible age group were invited to take part. This saw 25.8 percent of recognized votes go for the name Nuevo Mirandilla, with the next two most popular choices being Tacita de Plata (17.8 percent) and Ciudad de Cádiz (15.9 percent).

Ramón de Carranza was the Mayor of Cádiz between 1927 and 1931, and then between 1936 and 1937. Campo de Deportes Mirandilla was the first football venue in Cádiz between 1933 and 1955. It was also the place where the City’s first team, Mirandilla, played before it changed its name to Cádiz CF.

A total of 1,260 votes were cast, of which only 1,068 were deemed legitimate. In defending the levels of participation, Vila observed, “Some will want to tarnish the process saying that it has had a low participation, but I tell you that it has far exceeded how the name of Carranza was decided on, because then it was called that not by popular will, not because the people chose it, but because a son wanted to identify the stadium with his father’s name.”

Vila, who also holds the position of Deputy Mayor of Cádiz, stressed that authorities had a duty to “repair the pain” of victims of the Civil War.

He added, “We had a moral and political duty towards our citizens because today, and many ignore it with total ignorance, there are still relatives who have not been able to bury their victims. Citizens were forced to pass in front of the stadium and see how the name of the repressor continued to have a place of honor in the City.”

With this name change of their home arena, ‘The Pirates’ have literally ‘washed’ away bitter war memories.

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