Match Preview: CD Jávea vs Santa Pola CF

CD JÁVEA vs SANTA POLA CF
Sunday 1st December, 12.00pm
Camp d’Esports Municipal, Xàbia

OUR OPPONENTS

Santa Pola CF was formed in the late 1960s as ‘Union Deportiva Santa Pola’. Legend has it that football was brought to the town by a team of English researchers who were studying the marina fauna along the coast. During their free time, they would play a strange game on the beach between two sides which consisted of hitting a ball with their feet. The town’s children watched on open-mouthed at this sport that the English called ‘football’. When the researchers return to England, they took their samples and experiments back with them but couldn’t take the love of a new sport that had grown in the town, an enthusiasm that grew into the formation of a football club.

UD Santa Pola joined the Segunda Regional of the Murcian Football Federation (FFRM) for the 1968/69 season and within two years, the club had won promotion to the top level of regional football. Due to the fact that many players of UD Santa Pola did not come from the town, a new club was formed in the late 70s called Atlético Santa Pola which featured players which were exclusively Santapoleros. However, a financial crisis at the original club saw the two merge in 1979 to become Santa Pola CF.

During much of the 80s, the club continued to play in the FFRM Primera Regional until switching to the Valencian region in 1987, joining the Regional Preferente-South when it remained the next ten years until it finished runners-up at the end of the 1996/97 season and finished top of the pile in the play-offs in a round-robin group against UD Alzira and CD Betxí to win promotion to the Tercera División, level 4 in the national pyramid in Spanish football.

And there Santa Pola CF remains for almost a decade, finishing 4th in Group 6 at the end of the 2004/05 season, their highest finish in their history, to win a chance to take the next step through the play-offs. However, the club lost a two-legged semi-final 5-2 against Águilas CF, champions of Group 13 (FFRM).

The disappointment seemed to be long-lasting and the following season, the club finished rock-bottom of Group 6 and were relegated back to the regional system, joining the FFCV Regional Preferente Group 4. Turbulent times followed and might have folded were it not for a small but enthusiastic team led by Juan Miguel Vallés who embarked on a restructuring of the club, particularly at the youth level.

Santa Pola CF finished bottom of Group 4 at the end of the 2024/15 season and were relegated to the second tier of regional football for the first time since the 1986/87 campaign. The club finished top of Group 8 at the end of the COVID-affected 2019/20 season to win promotion back to the Regional Preferente and finished in the top half of Group 4 at the end of the 2022/23 season to win a spot in the inaugural Lliga Comunitat, the new top tier of regional football in the Comunidad Valenciana.

However, like CD Jávea, that first season didn’t go to plan and Santa Pola CF finished in the bottom three to suffer immediate relegation to the newly formed Primera FFCV, the second tier of the FFCV regional pyramid.

This season, Santa Pola are currently in fourth spot with 18 points, helped by a run of five wins in the last six games, which included a 7-1 win at bottom club CF Intercity ‘B’.

HEAD 2 HEAD

CD Jávea and Villena CF have played each other 16 times since their first meeting on October 4th 1987 when the rojiblancos lost 0-3 in Santa Pola; the return match on March 27th 1988 resulted in a 2-1 win for CD Jávea. At the end of the season, CD Jávea finished 8th, seven points off the play-offs whilst Santa Pola concluded the season in 15th three points above the relegation zone.

The biggest victory for CD Jávea was on January 8th 1989, a 2-0 victory in a season in which the rojiblancos completed the first of only two ‘doubles’ over the Santapoleros, winning the away match 2-1 on the final day of the season.

By contrast, Santa Pola CF have recorded two 3-0 wins over CD Jávea during the 1987/88 season and the 2007/08 season, the later being the only campaign that the Santapoleros have managed to do the ‘double’ over the rojiblancos.

PRIMERA FFCV – Group 4

FIXTURES – JORNADA 10

Saturday 30th November
15:30 – CF Intercity ‘B’ v Villajoyosa CF
16:00 – Novelda CF v Catral-Castrum CF
16:15 . CD El Campello v CD Betis Florida
16:30 – CD Almoradí v CD Montesinos
Sunday 1st December
12:00 – CD Jávea v Santa Pola CF
17:00 – CD Murada v Benferri CF
17:00 – Callosa Deportiva CF v Mutxamel CF
17:00 – Villena CF v CF Sporting de San Fulgencio