At the confluence of Camino Largo and Quintín Benito Street (Las Cruces), a wide avenue begins that the City of La Laguna dedicates to the poet and mayor José Tabares Bartlett. Popularly known as Camino de la Manzanilla, a place where a large amount of this aromatic and medicinal plant (Chamaemelum Novile) grew. This road is part of the large green area of the municipality, where the lagoon existed until its drying out in 1837. This avenue is characterized by a leafy grove of trees, on one side and the other, and chalet-type homes with large garden areas. La Manzanilla, the Camino Largo and the Camino de Las Peras, was always a place where during the summers young people met in “gangs”, to enjoy bicycles, walks and encourage coexistence, given that there were many families who came up from Santa Cruz to spend the summer in La Laguna.
On the right side, as you go up, you come across the entrance to Professor Jacinto Alzola Cabrera Street, located parallel to this avenue. On a large plot on this side of the street, a residence was once built where the Franciscan Brothers of the White Cross carry out meritorious care work, caring for people with disabilities and serious behavioral disorders.
Also crossed on this side of the road is the street labeled in honor of the tenor, considered one of the best in the history of the “Bel Canto”, born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Alfredo Kraus Trujillo. The avenue ends, on that side, at its meeting with Concepción Salazar.
On the left side, as you go up, is the dead-end street called Las Eras, parallel to the end of Paseo Oramas where the main soccer field of the City is located.
FRANCISO PERAZA STADIUM (FORMERLY, CAMPO HERPÉRIDES AND LA MANZANILLA)
Between Paseo Oramas, Tabares Bartlett and Camino Fuente Cañizares are the facilities of the City’s football stadium, where, apart from this sport, Athletics and Canarian Wrestling have always been practiced.
The City of La Laguna was mainly one of the places where the sport of football began to be known on the islands, due to the influence of the foreign colonies that lived in the municipality and brought the practice of this sport. In 1903 there were already two clubs, Patria and Sporting Laguna, whose first directors were Mr. Domingo Salazar, Mr. Tomás Morales, Mr. Luis Feria, Mr. Francisco Gutiérrez, Mr. Tabares, among others. The first meetings were held on a large esplanade at the foot of Mesa Mota. Later, and as interest in this sport grew, facilities were set up inside the artillery barracks in Plaza del Cristo, where the Lagunero representative competed as a local. Later, a part of the square was prepared to be used by children’s teams.
In 1912, the two Lagunero teams merged and a representative team of the municipality was created with the name of Hespérides Sporting Club, its first president being the lawyer Mr. Agrícola García Espinosa de los Monteros. Later the competitions would begin with the teams from Santa Cruz and Las Palmas, as well as those belonging to English, Austrian, German, etc. merchant and warships. that passed through the Island.
In January 1924, a General Meeting was held by the Hespérides Sporting Club, and the board chaired by Mr. Jaime Bluiett was elected. Days after the takeover, the leaders of the new Lagunero club were received in audience by the then Captain General of the Canary Islands, Mr. Alberto de Borbón y Castellví. At this reception they asked the military authority for their support to obtain the title of Royal for the lagoon entity.
On February 7, 1924, certification issued by the Mayordomía Mayor of His Majesty was received where King Alfonso XIII, “Acceding the wishes so respectfully expressed by that Society, it has been with great pleasure to accept the Honorary Presidency of the same, granting it at the same time the title of Royal, which it may hold in the future. You participate in the Royal Order for the knowledge of him and the Society of his worthy presidency and consequent effects. Signed by the Superior Head of the Palace, the Marquis of Fuensilia.”
According to the newspaper “Phalanx” dated September 12, 1941, “On Sunday the 14th, on the occasion of the festival of Christ of La Laguna, a great sports day will take place in the Manzanilla field by the first teams Hespérides and Tenerife. “In the Hespérides field, stands and stands are being set up, with the work on changing rooms, first aid kit and other ancillary facilities having already been completed.”.
On February 14, 1944, the weekly “Fresh air” say what “After important renovations such as laying grass, expanding the stands and improving the athletics track, the Manzanilla Football Field was officially inaugurated on September 14 of this year, on the occasion of the Festival of the Holy Christ of The lagoon”.
It would be very long to list all the athletes who participated during the existence of Real Hespérides, but we can mention the following as a tribute:
Piña, Castilla, Arencibia, international who played for Atlético Aviación; Espinosa, Francisco Roca, the goalkeeper Victoriano Ríos, who was the first Tenerife national team, Anita, professor Melquiades Álvarez and especially Francisco Peraza, a center forward who trained during his stay in England, later imparting his knowledge of this sport in our City . The La Laguna City Council agreed, on April 26, 1969, to name the Campo de la Manzanilla with the name Francisco Peraza Stadium.
To date this football stadium has been remodeled several times. An annex of artificial grass was built and these facilities are used by the representative teams of the municipality, mainly the Laguna Sports Club founded in 1984, by the union of several teams from the municipality.
Who was Tabares Bartlett?
Don José Tabares Bartlett was born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1850 and died in La Laguna in 1921. Mayor of the City, provincial deputy, gentleman of the chamber of Alfonso 1892 of the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Tenerife. He was made an honorary member of the aforementioned Society in 1918.
Poet of the Regionalist School, he collaborated in publications such as Magazine of the Canary Islands, New People and The Illustration of the Canary Islands. His poetry went through different periods and with an important influence from the poet Viana and Nicolás Estévanez, in works such as Poetic Sketch about the Conquest of the Canary Islands of 1881. Other titles to highlight from his work are Spinning Tops and Kites, The Hunt, Written in 1907, considered by specialized critics to be his best poem. In 2002 it was published José Tabares Bartletta brief installment in which the writer María Rosa Alonso considers it as “our best realist poet.”
The poet’s mortal remains rest in the cemetery of San Juan de La Laguna, in the paternal and filial tomb with his son Juan, who died at the age of 19, and his wife Doña María de los Dolores Tabares y Nava.
