For a city that has over the centuries, been conquered by Romans, Visigoths & Muslims, Tarazona, like the rest of Aragon, took its time to fall to the all-conquering force that is football. Indeed, whilst the regional capital of Zaragoza held out until 1915, it would take another decade before the game gained a foothold in Tarazona. The first club to emerge from city was Sociedad Deportiva Turiaso, who on the 20 April 1924 entertained Real Sociedad Atlética Stadium (from Zaragoza) at their brand new home, the Campo de Puentecristo. SD Turiaso played in the Segunda Categoria of the Arongonese regional league, but folded at the beginning of 1931. It took a full five years for another club to establish itself in the city. However, the formation of Sociedad Deportiva Triasú in May 1936 could not have come at a worse time, for little than two months later, footballing activity was suspended due to the outbreak of the Civil War.
SD Triasú reformed in 1939 and reached the Primera Categoria in 1942. The club moved to the Campo de San Vicente in 1944, which had hosted football since the the end of the Civil War. The ground was located on the northern edge of the city, close to the railway station, and was over looked by housing on its eastern side. Amenities were few and far between, with a short uncovered terrace on the western side of the ground and a basic locker room in the south eastern corner. After 14 seasons in the Primera Categoria, SD Triasú finally made it to the Tercera in 1956, primarily due to the expansion of the division. The club spent the next nine seasons in the third tier, with a highest finish of 5th in the 1964-65 season. Unfortunately, whilst the club had peaked on the field, finances were in terminal decline and in the summer of 1965, the SD Triasú was disbanded.
Once again, there followed a period when the city did not have a representative in senior football. The city’s next senior club was formed by a group of fans, who on 1 May 1970 set up Club de Fútbol Eureka. Starting in the Tercera Regional of the Aragonese pyramid, CF Eureka made steady progress over the next decade, edging closer to the national third tier. In 1977, the club changed its name to Sociedad Deportiva Tarazona and two years later, left the Campo de San Vicente and set up home at 400 metres to the northeast at the new Estadio Municipal. Their new home was built by the local council within a new sports complex, and featured a grass pitch (something that the Campo de Vicente never had!) a 25 meter cantilevered roofed stand on the east side, and on the opposite west side stood a 75 metre long cover over narrow hard standing. SD Tarazona played their first match at the new ground on 16 March 1979, beating CD Borja 2-1. The following 1979-80 season was a resounding success, with the club finishing runners-up in the league and earning promotion to the National Tercera, thanks to an expansion in the number of divisions ahead of the 1980-81 season.
That first full season in the Tercera saw SD Tarazona finish a very creditable ninth, however, over the next decade and a half, they where unable to match that performance, even seeing three short spells back in the Regional Preferente. The 1994-95 season brought to an end SD Tarazona’s 15-year flirtation with the Tercera. A disappointing campaign saw the club finish one place of the bottom of the league, earn a measly 21 points and ship 97 goals in the process. An attempt to bounce back immediately ended with a loss to CD Ebro in the play-offs, and with players departing and finances stretched, the club narrowly avoided relegation at the end of the 1996-97 season. Worse was to follow in the 97-98 season when SD Tarazona finished 17th in the Regional Preferente and was relegated to the sixth level of the Spanish pyramid. It would take 15 seasons for the club to return to the Tercera and as was the case with earlier ascents, the main action occurred off the pitch. At the end of the 2009-10, the promotion of CD Teruel and Real Zaragoza B to Segunda B, created two extra places in the the Aragonese Tercera and SD Tarazona’s third place finish was enough to earn promotion. The 2010s saw the club make incremental improvements, practically from one season to the next. Their previous best finish of 9th in the Tercera, was eclipsed in 2012-13 and six-successive top four finishes from 2014-15 onward, culminated in promotion to Segunda B in July 2020.
Not unlike SD Tarazona’s steady progress, The Estadio Municipal has evolved in a step-by-step manner. The municipality built an indoor sports pavilion at the southern end of the ground in the early 2000s, and its height and over-sized roof provides a degree of shelter to the hard standing below. The return to the Tercera in 2010 prompted the municipality to install an artificial surface. The changing rooms in the southeast corner of the ground were renovated in 2012, whilst new LED floodlights were installed at a cost of €90,000. The most significant development occurred during the 2013-14 season, when a new covered stand was built on the eastern side of the ground. It features five rows of multicoloured seats sit under a canopy made up of ten barrel-vaulted sections, each of which are supported at the rear of the stand by cantilevered props. The stand is 93 metres in length and seats 700, and came in at a reasonable €276,000. The stand saw its first paying customers on 26 January 2014, when SD Tarazona and CD Teruel drew 2-2. In 2018, the narrow west side received a new cover (which has since had three rows of seats added), and the large grass bank, which dominates the northern end of the enclosure, received a makeover which saw it covered in artificial turf and bedecked with a large banner proclaiming the name of the stadium, either side of the club crest.
SD Tarazona’s promotion to Segunda B came at the end of the 2019-20 season, which saw the club win a second-successive Tercera title. The season was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but when it resumed, the play-offs were staged at Estadio Pedro Sancho in Zaragoza. SD Tarazona made short work of Deportivo Aragón & CD Brea to earn promotion to the third tier. A sixth-place finish in the 2020-21 season meant that SD Tarazona would play in Segunda RFEF following the Spanish Federation’s restructuring of the pyramid The club has continued to progress, with strong finishes in each of the next seasons, which culminated in reaching the play-offs for the Primera Federación at the end of the 2023-24 season. Here, SD Tarazona earned victories over SD Compostela & CDA Navalcarnero earned promotion.
Sociedad Deportiva Tarazona Official X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/SDTarazona
La Futbolteca Club History: http://lafutbolteca.com/sociedad-deportiva-tarazona/
Estadios de España 