25th Anniversary exposition by the Frente Blanquiazul

[Fred Perry]

Enjoyable night in the Frente Blanquiazul local at one of the events to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the biggest and nosiest CD Tenerife fan club.

The large room was adorned with pictures from the last 25 years as well as merchandise, flags, stickers etc.
The main part was a meeting with the original organisers of the group from 1986 coming back to make speeches. Very interesting and comical were some of the stories.

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Added after 19 minutes:

The origins of the group were not in football at all. A group of lads used to follow the local handball team(in the 80´s this team & sport was very popular playing in front of full arenas in the Canaries). They gained a reputation by letting off flares and smoke bombs inside the arenas and decided to take their "way of support" onto the football terraces due to the boom at that time of Fan groups/Ultras etc.
In those days there was little or no police control and fireworks were permitted. Around 88/89 at a home derby with UD Las Palmas after the match the newly found Frente Blanquiazul walked around to the Herradura part of the stadium where only about 30/40 Las Palmas fans were present(in those days large scale away trips were not common unlike now).
There were NO POLICE and they walked right around the stadium without a problem. When they reached the visitors area the nervous Las Palmas Ultras pleaded that they were all Canarian after all and should not fight. Tenerife fans attacked anyway and it was the first occasion that the club distanced themselves from the group and the police began to take an interest.

Mistakes were made, famously the first membership cards had a neo-nazi cross on. The founders said that it was through "ignorance", although in those days they were not politically biased to the left or right, their main aim was only to support CD Tenerife and to be against Las Palmas.

[bonitatime]

Thanks for sharing the photos
There is an amazing range of fan articles



www.soydeltete.es

[Fred Perry]

Other anecdotes included promotion to the Primera in 1989(I was there). Tenerife gained promotion in Sevilla against Real Betis and returned to the south airport in the early hours. Literally thousands of fans converged on the airport in chaotic scenes of joy. Incredibly, fans pushed down the doors and found themselves on the actual runway of the South airport as flights arrived!
One plane had just landed and the word spread that this one was carrying the players, hundreds of supporters with flags, letting off rockets, massed around but it actually had just come in from East Midlands Airport. We spoke to some of the poor tourists from the flight later and they thought it was some sort of revolution! :crylaughing:
In the end the airport fire brigade needed to let off their water cannon to clear the runway.


A similar thing happened in the next promotion in the year 2001. Again the team led by a certain Rafa Benitez, having won in Madrid returned to the South Airport and were greeted by thousands of fans. Amazingly(and I still cannot believe the stupidness of the authorities) a flight carrying holidaying Brits from Luton were forced to walk through the mass. It was all good humoured and fans made a small path for the tourists to pass but due to the exctasy of the occasion nearly every single one was hugged and patted on the back as if they were the players. What a welcome. One small English chap commented that in Hawaii they just got a flower necklace but that was something else!!