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| Real Sociedad
are a Basque football team from San Sebastián/Donostia in
Guipúzcoa/Gipuzkoa. Founded on September 17, 1909, they
currently play in the Primera División. Known as the txuri-urdin ("white-blue" in Guipuzcoan Basque), from their colors: blue with white vertical stripes and white shorts. A blue quarter on white also appears in the flag of their home town. Home stadium is the Anoeta that seats 32,000 spectators. The club has announced plans to build a completely new ground known as the Gipuzkoarena ("Guipuzcoa's"), which will seat 42,400 and is scheduled to open in 2007. Given the Real ("royal") title by King Alfonso XIII when San Sebastián was summer capital of Spain (see also Real Madrid and Real Betis), Real Sociedad were one of the founder members of the National Championship league in 1928-29. That season, the team finished fourth, with Benzobas being the highest scorer of the Championship. The team's name changed to Donostia Football Club in 1931, with the advent of the Second Spanish Republic, but changed back to Real Sociedad after the Civil War in 1939. The team has generally fluctuated between the Primera and Segunda divisions, in one period (during the 1940s) managing to be relegated and promoted seven times. The best period of the team's history must be the early 1980s where they won the Primera two seasons running. For many years, Real Sociedad followed the practice of their Basque rival Athletic Bilbao of signing only Basque players. They abandoned the policy in 1989 when they signed Irish international John Aldridge from Liverpool. The team that finished a surprising second in La Liga in 2002-03 dramatically illustrated this change. Key contributors to that side included a Serb (Darko Kovacevic), a Turk (Nihat Kahveci), a Russian (Valeri Karpin), and a Dutch goalkeeper (Sander Westerveld). |
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