Article updated: 16/05/2026
Over the years, there must have been several occasions when the fans of Terrassa FC thought they were on the cusp of the big time, only to see the club stall and eventually slip back down the leagues. Terrassa has a population of 210,000 and lies 18 miles northwest of Barcelona and 5 miles west of Sabadell. You would think that, given its size and proximity to so much footballing talent, something would have clicked. Yet in over 120 years of footballing action, the club has only mustered a couple of Copa Catalunya titles and 15 seasons in La Segunda.
Formed in 1906 by students of Terrassa’s School of Industrial Engineering and playing under the name Young’s Foot-Ball Club, the team played in the school’s grounds until 1910, when, due to urban sprawl and large crowds, they moved to Campo del Canonget. In May 1911, the club changed its name to Tarrasa Football Club, its colours from red and white to white and blue and joined the Catalan Football Federation. Soon, Campo del Canonget was too small for the crowds it was attracting and on 2 March 1913, the club inaugurated a new ground at Calle Pi y Margall, which would later be known as Campo del Obispo Irurita. The ground was situated to the northwest of the town centre on the Carrer de Pasteur. The club made steady progress in the Catalan leagues, reaching the Primera Categoría B in 1915. It finally made it to the top division for the 1924-25 season and finished in a very respectable fourth place. However, by the time the Spanish national league started in February 1929, the club was struggling on the pitch, had been relegated from the Catalan top division, and was losing players to the professional ranks.
Terrassa spent nearly all of the 1930s in Primera Categoria B, winning the league in three successive seasons from 1932 to 1935, but failing in the playoffs. It finally reached Primera Categoria A in 1940-41 and in the following season won the league. This coincided with a restructuring of the national leagues, and Club Deportivo, as they were now known, Tarrasa found themselves in La Segunda for the first time. In Group II of a regionalised league, Tarrasa finished fifth out of eight teams and, due to another reorganisation of the league, had to play in a relegation play-off group, which featured, among others, Deportivo Alavés, Alcalá SD and CD Tudela. Needless to say, Tarrasa was relegated to the Tercera, where they remained for another 11 years.
A first Tercera title arrived in 1953-54, and direct promotion to La Segunda was the club’s reward, which was a relief given their previous failures to navigate the playoffs at the end of the previous three seasons. This was the start of the most successful period of the club’s history, with seven consecutive seasons in the second tier. During this spell, Tarrasa spent the majority of the time occupying positions in the bottom half of the table. They even avoided relegation with a playoff victory against UE Sants at the end of the 1957-58 season. One notable exception was the sixth-place finish achieved in 1959-60, the club’s highest-ever final placing. This was also their last season at the Campo del Obispo Irurita. Little had changed at the enclosure since it had opened in 1913, save for the addition of a few narrow terraces. Tarrasa played its last competitive match at the old ground on 22 May 1960, when they lost to Barcelona 1-2 in the second leg of the Copa del Generalísimo.
Tarrasa’s new Estadio Municipal de Deportes was situated to the north of the town, and with a 20,000-capacity, it would have been an impressive enclosure for La Segunda in the 1960s. The first match was held on 21 August 1960, a friendly against Sevilla FC, which saw the Andalicians win 2-4. Unfortunately, the club endured a torrid 1960-61 season, finishing bottom of the Segunda Nord, and the Estadio Municipal would not grace the second tier for another 14 years. Between 1961 and 1974, Tarrasa won another 2 Tercera titles and visited the playoffs on no fewer than nine occasions without success. A fourth Tercera title was achieved in 1974-75, and thanks to the restructuring of the league, no playoff was required to reach La Segunda, which is probably just as well. In their first season back in the second flight, Tarrasa ironically found success in a playoff, this time to avoid relegation, against AD Almeria, although it did require the Andalusians to be disqualified for fielding ineligible players. 1976-77 saw a seventh-place finish, but by 1979-80, the renamed Terrassa Futbol Club had dropped to Segunda B. Relegation to the Tercera followed in 1982, and by the time the Estadio Municipal de Deportes was refurbished for the 1992 Olympic Hockey Tournament, the club was playing in the Catalan Regional Preferente.
The refurbishment for the Olympics saw the existing terraces refaced and seats installed. On the west side, the rather basic, short-pitched roof was replaced with a huge 130-metre-long cantilevered roof. The roof followed the curve of the seating and, at 22 metres deep, provided good cover for the seats on all three tiers. The grass pitch was replaced with an artificial surface, and a disappointingly neutral shade of beige was chosen for the 11,500 seats. New floodlights were installed on four huge corner rigs that leaned toward the pitch.
New, improved facilities can often inspire a resident team, and Terrassa was no exception, winning the Catalan Preferente and the Tercera in quick succession. Segunda B was to prove a harder proposition, and the club’s playoff hoodoo returned to haunt them after finishing second in Group III of Segunda B in 1997-98. In a group featuring Málaga CF, Talavera CF and SD Beasain, Terrassa entered the final match at Málaga’s La Rosaleda stadium needing just to avoid defeat by less than 2 goals to win promotion. The rug was pulled from beneath them with a disastrous 4-1 defeat, and the club took another four seasons to reach the playoffs again. Terrassa reached the 2001-02 play-offs via the back door when Real Zaragoza B was unable to compete due to their senior team’s relegation to La Segunda. So, fifth place was enough to see them enter a group with Barakaldo, AD Ceuta and Hércules CF, and Terrassa swept the board, setting a record by winning all six matches and with it, promotion to La Segunda.
The stay in La Segunda lasted three years, finishing a respectable twelfth in the first two seasons. However, following relegation to Segunda B in 2006, a slow decline set in with diminished returns at the end of each season. In June 2009, and with the club in the financial mire, it was sold to T.F.C. Sports, thus becoming the first club in Spain to be owned by a Limited company. With the players’ outstanding wages settled and a loophole in the Federation’s ownership laws exploited, the club continued in Segunda B for another season. It was not a happy year, as the club was bottom of the league throughout the campaign, winning just six and drawing seven of its 38 matches, before dropping to the Tercera. In 2010, Terrassa Olímpica 2010 SAD was formed and acquired the rights of the former club, which, in effect, bought its history and ensured continuity.
The Estadi Olímpic has always been perfectly functional, but a bit dull. Highlights have included a 13,000 attendance against Levante in 2004 and 12,000 to watch Real Madrid in the last sixteen of the Copa del Rey. In 2010, the municipality added a dash of colour to the stadium by painting the walls between the tiers and the vomitories bright red, but an altogether more effective refurbishment took place in 2022, when, for a short period of time, the Estadi Olimpic de Terrassa reverted to a venue for hockey. In 2022, the stadium was chosen to host group stages and knock-out phases of the 2022 Women’s FIH Hockey World Cup. This saw a major upgrade of all the seating areas, amenities, public concourses, floodlighting and media facilities. After the tournament, the artificial hockey pitch was removed, and a new artificial surface was installed. However, the southern terrace was closed and covered with a large banner, reducing the ground’s capacity to 11,500.
After eleven seasons in the Tercera, Terrassa FC won promotion to the newly formed Segunda Federación, thanks in part to FC Vilafranca being ineligible for promotion. In its first five seasons in the fourth tier, Terrassa has run up five top-10 finishes. Unfortunately, it seems that it’s going to take more than a make-over to brighten up Terrassa FC’s future.
Estadios de España 