Article updated: 01/06/2026
Located on the banks of the Rio Miño, Ourense is especially famous for its natural hot springs, which have attracted visitors since Roman times. The city grew in importance during the Middle Ages, thanks to its strategic position linking the interior to the coast. However, as the 20th century dawned, the city was slow to embrace God’s own game, for unlike its coastal counterparts, football did not really establish itself until the second decade of the 20th Century. Even then, Ourense’s clubs were mostly confined to the lower reaches of the regional leagues, as clubs from the port cities of Vigo and A Coruña dominated the Galician football scene. That was until the emergence of Unión Deportiva Orensana in 1935. After reaching the Tercera in 1943, the club clocked up a series of impressive finishes, including league titles in 1945-46 & 1948-49.
UD Orensana’s home during their stay in the Tercera was the Campo de Loña, a small fenced-off ground in the Lagoas district of the city. It had originally opened in 1913 and was originally the home of Orense Foot-ball Club. After Orense FC folded in 1933, the ground served as the home for several clubs before UD Orensana made it their home in 1940. The Campo de Loña was particularly narrow, barely wider than 50 metres, and its spectator facilities were limited to hardstanding around the pitch. The site of the old Campo de Loña has now been swallowed up by the city’s university campus. However, following promotion to La Segunda in 1949, the club moved just over a kilometre to a new ground on the western edge of the city, in the district of O Couto. There had been a basic football ground on this site previously, when local amateur side CF Burgas opened an enclosure in April 1928. The new stadium was built with funds from the state-run Educación y Descanso and was inaugurated on 6 November 1949. Upon opening, home fans were treated to a 5-0 hammering of Racing Ferrol. Their new abode had the official name of the Estadio de José Antonio, but supporters referred to it as O Couto from the outset. UD Orensana hung around in La Segunda for three seasons, but the cost of travelling across the breadth of Spain took its toll, and following relegation at the end of the 1951-52 season, the club folded.
After the demise of Unión Deportiva Orensana, brothers Jesús & José Luís Díaz Varela formed Club Deportivo Ourense in September of 1952. They signed several former UD Orensana players and moved into O Couto. The club made rapid progress through the regional leagues and reached La Segunda in 1959. Here they stayed for 6 seasons, finishing third in their debut year and again in 1961-62. After their relegation to the Tercera in 1965, there followed a period of dominance in the Galician section of the Tercera, but failure to progress beyond the playoffs. This included a remarkable feat of winning all 30 league fixtures during the 1967-68 season, before falling in the playoffs, losing 3-2 on aggregate to Elche Ilicitano. CD Ourense eventually returned to La Segunda in 1969, and ran up a total of seven seasons in the second tier, spread over three further visits, but failed to scale the heights of that initial visit. Following their last relegation from La Segunda in 1999, CD Ourense spent the best part of a decade in Segunda B, before dropping to the Tercera in 2008.
O Couto is a curious mix of stands and terraces that have been converted to seating. The Grade Preferencia is the largest and most modern of the stands and was built in the early 1990s in advance of CD Ourense’s brief visit to the second division. This holds 2,232 spectators in bands of red & blue seats that are raised some ten feet above pitch level. Opposite is the older Grada de Tribuna. This dates from the late sixties when a barrel-vaulted cantilevered roof replaced the old propped cover. This was seated when the club had three years in La Segunda in the late 1990s and has 1,811 red & blue seats. At the southern end of the ground is the Grada de Fondo. This was originally an open terrace that curved around the oval layout. This was also covered and seats added in the late 1990s. The stadium saw its first floodlit match on 28 September 1972, when Real Zaragoza visited for a friendly, although the current lights date from the early 1990s. O Couto hosted the Spanish National U21 side when they played their Dutch counterparts in November of 1981.
As for CD Ourense, they appeared to have turned the corner in 2011-12 when they won their eighth Tercera title. Placed in the Campeones Group for the playoffs, Ourense made short work of the Basque side CD Laudio, winning 4-1 on aggregate. After a four-year absence, third-tier football finally returned to O Couto, and a 12th-place finish in the 2012-13 season was a respectable outcome. The 2013-14 season was played against a backdrop of a financial crisis. With debts mounting and a lack of governance in the boardroom, CD Ourense was demoted and folded in June 2014. Unión Deportiva Ourense, a fan-owned co-operative, was founded at the start of the 2014-15 season. It now shares O Couto with Ourense Club de Fútbol, which was formed in 1977. The clubs first crossed paths in the Tercera during the 2018-19 season, and played each other in the league over the next three campaigns before UD Ourense dropped back to the Regional Preferente. Since then, the clubs have avoided each other in the league, with Ourense CF reaching the Primera Federación in 2024. The roles were reversed in May 2026, when Ourense CF dropped to the Segunda Federación, and a week or so later, UD Ourense won promotion to the Primera Federación.
I’ve always liked its hotch-potch mix of stands and the slightly unkempt feel about O Couto. However, in 2023, the Xunta de Ourense carried out a major refurbishment of the stadium. New seats were installed in each stand, and the exterior and once ramshackle northern end were clad in white perspex. New changing facilities and an upgraded media area were also added to the northern end. A hybrid pitch was installed, whilst the wide, open spaces behind each goal were covered with blue artificial turf. At a total cost of €2.6m, the makeover has breathed new life into this delightful provincial stadium.
Estadios de España 