It was the penultimate matchday of the 1988-89 season when UD Las Palmas, which was about to complete a course mired in mediocrity, still had a way of bringing joy to part of its fans, even if it only meant a lesser evil on a sad path. They received Rayo Vallecano, second in the standings, a position that the Blue and Whites stopped occupying a week earlier because they lost to Real Burgos at the Heliodoro (0-1). Thus, it depended on the yellow team to tie or win the Vallecas team to have options to recover the position of direct promotion, however, it did not come out.
Because that Saturday, June 17, 1989, UD was simply not on the field. He lost nothing more and nothing less than 0-6, which caused the anger of a large number of followers of the chicharrero team and the suspicion that Las Palmas had not competed in order to harm him.
The day after tomorrow, 33 years later, a similar situation once again catches UD in the middle, only this time a lot is at stake, as much as fighting for promotion to the First Division in a playoff that didn’t exist before. What there were were two round-trip qualifiers, and Tenerife, despite their discomfort with Las Palmas, very clearly beat Betis, who gave them their place in the top flight.
On Sunday, UD’s rival, Sporting de Gijón, will bid farewell at home to a season that, like that of the yellow team, will fall into oblivion, however, they have the possibility of keeping their fans happy, because if they don’t win de Pimienta will have helped Oviedo, his eternal rival, not to participate in the promotion.
Throughout the week, most of the fans of the rojiblanco team have expressed their opposition to their team winning. You don’t even need to lose, since with a tie you will have prevented the Carbayones, who won at the end of April in El Molinón in a duel with a final tangana, from fighting to climb. Both individuals through social networks and a good part of the sports clubs have been in favor of not benefiting Oviedo, which, consequently, Las Palmas takes advantage of.
In any case, and as much as the local fans can whistle at their players if they score a goal, the game must be played and any result is possible, just as it happened on June 17, 1989.
As much as some might hope that the yellow team would let go, the landslide was excessive, so much so that the next day’s edition of LA PROVINCIA made the headline on its front page UD Las Palmas said goodbye to its audience with an embarrassing performance.
Already in the pages of the sports section, Antonio Lemus titled his chronicle as follows: Six ‘lightning bolts’ fell on UD Las Palmas. Inside, the journalist made no reference to the fact that the result was detrimental to Tenerife, but rather to the disaster of the team then directed by Germán Dévora, with words such as shame, disaster, useless, unfortunate or frightening.
On another page, the editor José Hernández asks Germán if he wanted to comment on the strangeness of the Tenerife press that there were no players from the neighboring island in the call.
The answer was: “If we take into account the latest line-ups, except in Eibar, which had no strikers and Andrés played, in the rest of the matches no player from Tenerife, with the exception of Julio –Durán– has been lining up. When recovering Lazlo and Vidal, Andrés has had to stay out. José, in training on Wednesday, made a small attack on Onofre and I thought it convenient not to take him. As for Chinea, two weeks ago I spoke with him because I was interested in taking him out in Eibar, even if it was 10 minutes, and he told me that he was not in a good mood to play ».
Be that as it may, Rayo strolled in the extinct Insular Stadium. He scored two goals before the break and then, with one more for Alexis II’s expulsion in the 41st minute, he danced to UD, who fired Koke Contreras that same day. An embarrassment from which CD Tenerife also suffered.
