Puertollano – Estadio Municipal Ciudad de Puertollano

Article updated 08/12/2025

For centuries, Puertollano was little more than a rural stopover in a flat mountain pass on the route from Andalucia to the Meseta Central. That all changed in the 1870s with the discovery of vast coal deposits in the area around the Rio Ojailén. The town’s population grew steadily over the next few decades, reaching 20,000 by the early 1920s. While other cities in Spain had witnessed an explosion of interest in football that coincided with an economic boom, the citizens of Puertollano had yet to ignite their passion for the sport. It would take a further lift in the town’s economy in the 1940s for the first serious club to emerge.

In 1940, General Franco visited Puertollano to review research on extracting oil from local coal. The project concluded in 1942, resulting in the establishment of the state-owned Empresa Nacional Calvo Sotelo (ENCASO). Operations began in early 1943, bringing major economic and social improvements to the town. On the back of this success, Club Deportivo Calvo Sotelo was founded on 24 September 1948, and it joined the Castellana Federation in December of that year. The club set up home in a new enclosure located a kilometre to the east of the town, which bore the name of the state-owned company. Success was immediate, with the club winning the Primera Regional – Ciudad Real in its debut season and again a year later, a title that earned promotion to the national Tercera. It is worth noting that Puertollano was not alone in seeing nationalised companies set up a senior team. Clubs were established in As Pontes (Galicia), Escatrón (Zaragoza), Ponferrada (León), Escombrillas (Cartagena) and Andorra (Teruel). In fact, CD Calvo Sotelo from Puertollano and Calvo Sotelo from Andorra met in the regular season during the 1971-72 and 1972-73 campaigns.

In 1953, the club changed its name to Club de Fútbol Calvo Sotelo and was making noises in the Tercera division with a series of top-five finishes. The club won its first Tercera title in the 1958-59 season and four more followed in the next five seasons. After a series of failures to navigate the playoffs, the club’s luck finally turned in 1963-64 when they disposed of Club Atlético Malagueño and CD Menorca to earn a place in La Segunda. Their good form continued, culminating in a second-place finish in the 1967-68 season. This earned a short trip to a Córdoba side that had struggled in La Primera. However, Cordoba might as well have been a million miles away, as CF Calvo Sotelo blew it again in the playoffs, losing 1-6 on aggregate. Three further seasons in La Segunda followed before the club was relegated back to the Tercera at the end of the 1970-71 season. CF Calvo Sotelo regained a place in the second division in 1975. However, the magic had deserted them, and following three seasons of struggle, they dropped into the recently formed Segunda B.

The club had one further season in the second tier in 1984-85, but following the privatisation of Calvo Sotelo in 1988, the club changed its name to Puertollano Industrial Club de Fútbol, and the subsidies ceased. The club also moved to the Estadio Municipal Francisco Sánchez Menor in 1988, a multi-purpose sports stadium to the northwest of the town. The lack of funds led to a decline in the club’s fortunes, resulting in a drop into the regional leagues in 1990. In 1999, the club joined forces with three junior clubs in the town to form Unión Deportiva Puertollano, and eventually escaped the Tercera in 2006. They continued to play at the Estadio Municipal Francisco Sánchez Menor until 2010, when a move to the new stadium also saw the club re-branded as Club Deportivo Puertollano. The final match at Francisco Sánchez Menor took place on 31 October 2010, with the home club defeating CF Caravaca 1-0.

The new stadium was built on the site of the club’s original Estadio de Cerru, although the town’s urban sprawl now enveloped the site. The Estadio de Cerru had continued to be used for football up until 2005, when the site was cleared in preparation for the new enclosure. Constructed by the municipality for €7 million, the new arena has an all-seated capacity of 7,240, arranged on three open banks of blue and white seating and a large covered main Tribuna. The Tribuna stands on the northern side of the ground and comprises two tiers, with 960 seats spread over four rows on the lower tier, and 1,916 seats over ten rows in the upper tier. At the rear of the upper tier is a row of 17 private boxes. The Tribuna also contains modern media facilities, four changing rooms and an indoor warm-up area for the players. The development is completed with a full-size artificial training pitch behind the southern bank of seating. Care was taken to preserve the original arched gateway to the stadium, which still stands behind the Tribuna. CD Puertollano played its first match at the Estadio Ciudad de Puertollano on 21 November 2010, when they drew 2-2 with Sevilla Atlético.

Regrettably, a nice new stadium does not guarantee success on the pitch. The 2010-11 season tailed off alarmingly, with no wins in the final seven matches. The same pattern occurred in 2011-12, although the problem was exacerbated by the club’s need to save money and shed players during the January transfer window. With some players’ wages still unpaid at the end-of-season deadline, Puertollano was demoted to the Tercera. Fortunes appeared to be on the up when the club won promotion back to Segunda B in June 2014. However, it was unable to raise the €400,000 bond required by the league to compete in the third tier and remained in the Tercera. Worse was to follow, and eventually 67 years of club history came to an end when it was wound up on 15 May 2015.

A new club, Calvo Sotelo de Puertollano Club de Fútbol, was formed during the summer of 2015, starting out in the Segunda División Autonómica de Castilla-La Mancha (Tier 7). The club achieved three successive promotions, attaining the level of their predecessor with promotion to the Tercera in 2018. Since then, things have rather stalled. Following the restructuring of the Spanish football pyramid in 2021, Calvo Sotelo Puertollano CF earned a position in the Segunda Federación, thereby maintaining Tier 4 status. However, a poor season saw the club relegated to the Tercera Federación, where they have remained. Regrettably, the Nuevo Estadio Municipal Ciudad de Puertollano is yet another example of an excellent stadium confined to the lower divisions of Spanish football.