It is the 100th anniversary of the entity that was born for basketball but where tennis is today the star sport
It currently has 1,410 members apart from the 156 paddle tennis subscribers and the 262 fitness subscribers
Basketball was the main ‘culprit’ that in 1922 a group of friends, with the intention of continuing to practice that sport that father Emili Millán taught them and that immediately caught them when they were students of the San Antoni school, decided to found an entity that they would call Laietà Basketball Club.
Since then a hundred years have passed and that embryo is today a benchmark club in the Catalan sports scene in which tennis and more recently paddle tennis have become the entity’s star activities.
First official basketball game
But let’s review a bit of history. On December 8, 1922, Laietà played against Europa in what is considered the first official match in the history of basketball. in Spain. From then on, growth was spectacular, thanks in large part to the installation of a tennis court. But basketball was still the hallmark of the club to which roller hockey was also added. Its prestige was ‘in crescendo’ and over the years the increase in partners forced the entity to move to Viladomat street in 1931. The creation of a famenino basketball team was another important element for the club in that golden age of the entity.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the club had a bad dream when suffers the eviction of the Viladomat facilities, but a few years later, with 1,400 members, he manages to buy a piece of land for 4 million pesetas on Calle Pintor Ribalta, the club’s current headquarters.
Balances with the economy
After a new crisis in the eighties, the club manages to balance its economy again and at the same time tennis is acquiring more and more importance in a Laietà already recognized as one of the most important clubs in the city, although it continued to maintain this familiar ‘caliu’ among its members.His tennis school manages to turn this elitist sport into a much more popular activity and student enrollment is growing unstoppably.
Also the base basketball acquires an importance in the club as well as the hockey of the smallest, but the really difficult thing is to maintain elite teams that end up disappearing.
The appearance of paddle tennis
In the last decade, paddle tennis has also burst into the Laietà, being a new source of income and a meeting point for many members who have found in this sport a social, acceptable activity that keeps them in shape.
Laietà currently has 30,000m2 of facilities, 15 tennis courts, 13 paddle tennis courts, 1 swimming pool, 1 soccer field, 3 multi-sports courts, 1 fitness room, 1 spinning room and 1 room for classes directed aside from other services for the 1,410 members and the 156 paddle tennis subscribers and the 262 fitness subscribers that currently form the Laietà family. Congratulations!