Article updated: 15/04/2026
Club Deportivo Lugo always seemed to play second or even third fiddle when the footballing rations were dealt out in Galicia. Deportivo La Coruña and Celta Vigo are the region’s bigwigs, and from time to time, SD Compostela and Pontevedra CF have muscled in on the act with appearances in the top flight. However, for a decade from 2012, whilst some of their neighbours fell on hard times, CD Lugo quietly went about its business in Spain’s second tier.
Before we focus on the city’s current senior representatives, let’s turn back the clock to 1908, to be precise and the first recorded match in Lugo. During the San Froilán festivities, two clubs from A Coruña staged an exhibition match that inspired the creation of Club Deportivo Lucense. The club, with the support of the local council, set up home at the Campo de Montirón on the southeastern edge of the city. Soon, other clubs followed, but as local rivalries developed, the city did not have a representative in the Galician Championship. That changed with the formation of Lugo Sporting Club on 24 June 1924. The club made its debut in Serie B of the Galician Federation on 21 September 1924, playing Lemos Club at the Campo de Polvorín, which was located just to the southeast of the city, on the road to Ponferrada. The team struggled to compete with stronger clubs, remaining in Serie B and eventually folding in 1930, before reorganising in 1932. After signing professional players, they earned promotion in 1933/34. Their first season in the Galician First Division saw the club finish last, but third in the 1935-36 in 1934/35 and fourth the following season. Despite the outbreak of the Civil War, football continued, and the club finished the 1936-37 championship in second place before withdrawing from the competition.
After the end of the war, the city was still no closer to achieving its goal of a club playing in the National Tercera. That changed in August 1943, with the formation of Sociedad Gimnástica Lucense. SG Lucense were formed following the merger of Sociedad Deportiva El Rayo and Lugo Club de Fútbol and granted a place in Group I of the Tercera. The new club set up home at the Campo de Polvorín, and later that year, won the Copa de Galicia. Good form in the Tercera saw the club reach the playoffs in 1944-45 & 1946-47. The club also moved home during this period, inaugurating the Campo de Los Miñones on the northern edge of town on 7 October 1945, with a 5-0 victory over Galicia Ferrol. The expansion of La Segunda to two regional divisions for the 1949-50 season saw the club elevated to the second tier. SG Lucense had a decent debut season, finishing eleventh out of 16. A fourteenth-place finish followed in 1950-51 before the wheels came off a year later when the club finished in last place. Financially crippled by the expense of competing across the breadth of northern Spain, the club folded in the summer of 1952.
Following the demise of SG Lucense, the city’s other senior team, CD Polvorín, folded in 1953. Under the presidency of Emilio Núñez Torrón, a new club, Club Deportivo Lugo, was formed in June 1953. They conveniently took the place that CD Polvorin had vacated in the Tercera and played their home matches at the Campo de Los Miñones. Not a great deal happened over the next 20 years. There were a couple of close calls for promotion in the early sixties, and at the beginning of the decade, Los Miñones was renamed Campo de Angel Carro, in honour of the former director of the club and president of the local arts council. CD Lugo dropped to the regional preferente for the first and only time in 1972 but returned to the Tercera a year later to see out its final season at the old ground.
In 1973, the local council bought the land on which Los Miñones stood and built a new stadium to the west of the city, on land above the Rio Miño. The Estadio Angel Carro was inaugurated on 31 August 1974 with a triangular tournament between the hosts, Deportivo La Coruña and CD Lemos. On opening, it featured a main stand on the west side of the ground that had a low concrete cantilevered cover and was 60 metres in length. At the southern end of the ground stood a narrow terrace and the changing rooms, which were accessed from behind the goal. The whole of this end was covered in dozens of advertising hoardings. The east side was a full-length open terrace with a short cover at the rear, whilst the north end featured an open grass bank. With a capacity of 8,000, the city had a stadium that was ready for better things. Regrettably, CD Lugo was not, and they remained stuck in the Tercera for another four seasons.
The Tercera title was eventually won in 1977-78, and with it, direct promotion to Segunda B. Unfortunately, the club’s stay lasted only one season, and CD Lugo returned to the Tercera for another seven years. Another Tercera title and playoff victories over CD Leganés & Atlético Baleares secured promotion back to Segunda B in 1986. This elevation saw major development at the Angel Carro, with a new stand erected on the east side. This replaced the open terrace and also featured club offices and new changing rooms. Floodlights were installed, but not just any old floodlights. These were purchased from PSV Eindhoven and were switched on when FC Porto popped over the border for a friendly match. This time, Segunda B held no demons for CD Lugo, who made steady progress, so that by the early nineties, the club was challenging for promotion to La Segunda. 1990-91 saw the club miss out in the playoffs to CP Mérida, but the following year, promotion was achieved when they topped their tough play-off group ahead of CF Extremadura, UE Sant Andreu & Elche CF.
In the lead-up to the club’s debut in the second division, the grass bank at the northern end of the ground was redeveloped. In its place grew a modern, single-tiered stand, with bands of red & white seats that ran the width of the pitch. A square, red-brick suite of offices was also added to the northeast corner. This did little to lift the club, and their season-long stay had few highlights. Scoring goals was a major problem, with just 23 scored in 38 outings. CD Lugo finished 18th out of twenty, and seven points from safety. What followed was a decade of mediocrity in Segunda B, before an inevitable drop back to the Tercera in 2003. It took the club three seasons to escape the Tercera, and what followed was steady progress back to La Segunda. This culminated in the club’s first-ever Segunda B title in 2010-11, but more heartache in the playoffs. Beaten by Real Murcia in the Fase de Campeones, where the winners gained direct promotion, CD Lugo then lost to CD Alcoyano in the final phase. Promotion back to the second division was finally achieved at the end of the 2011-12 season, thanks to playoff victories over SD Eibar, Atlético Baleares and Cádiz.
The stadium underwent a refurbishment in 2001, which saw the east and west sides of the ground seated, reducing the capacity to just under 4,800. The stadium was also renamed Estadio Anxo Carro. thus taking on the Galician version. The overhaul also saw the end of the old changing block and narrow terrace at the southern end of the ground. This was replaced with a strip of artificial turf/training pitches and a high wall of advertisements, but in the summer of 2013, an open deck of seating was added, raising the capacity to 5,800. A roof was added to this section in the autumn of 2013, whilst the roof on the east side was extended over the opening seating. At the beginning of the 2015-16, the seats on the north, east & west sides were replaced. 2019 brought about further extension to the side & southern enclosures, raising capacity to 7,114.
During their stay in La Segunda, CD Lugo developed a useful habit of proving wrong practically every harbinger of doom. Regularly tipped as favourites for relegation, the club generally avoided a relegation battle. This was no mean feat, given that CD Lugo regularly had the lowest budget in the second tier, and its location in the north-west of the country brought with it extra travel costs and sometimes problems attracting players. Finally, after 11 years in the second tier, CD Lugo finished bottom of La Segunda at the end of the 2022-23 season, 19 points for safety. The drop to the Primera Federación saw the covered stand at the southern end of the ground removed, reducing the capacity to 6,000. In late 2025, the club announced a €3.8m project to redevelop the stadium. Work commenced on a replacement for the southern Gol Stand in January 2026, which will have a seated capacity of 1,300, taking the stadium’s total capacity to nearly 6,500. The project is jointly funded by Xunta de Galicia, La Liga’s CVC funds, and the club, and will also see improvements to the other three stands, changing facilities and media/camera gantries.
Estadios de España 