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BASKETBALL | From a ‘baby boom’ to celebrating a European Cup: when Fuenlabrada adopted Partizan Belgrade

  • The Serbian team, forced to play in exile in the 1991/92 season due to the war, played seven home games at the Fernando Martín, generating a twinning with the Fuenlabreños whose legacy remains alive 30 years later

  • “They offered us to host three Yugoslav teams and we chose Partizan because it was the youngest and the one that would most identify with the people here,” recalls José Quintana, then mayor and today president of Basketball Fuenlabrada.

The April 16, 1992while the whole of Spain wept over the misfortune of Joventut, the Fuente las Escaleras de Fuenlabrada, inaugurated just five years earlier, was filled with exultant fans. About 800, they say; maybe a thousand, who knows.

That day was celebrated in istanbulthousands of kilometers away, the final of what was then called the FIBA ​​European League, today the Euroleague, always european cup.

And when everything seemed destined for a victory for Penya, the one that filled more than six decades of passion for the basket in Badalona with meaning, Sasha Djordjevic stood up to score the final three-pointer three seconds from the end and crown the European champion Partizan Belgrade (70-71).

There was already talk of the Yugoslav curse, since it was already the fourth time in recent years (1985, 90, 91 and 92) that a team from the extinct republic won the grand final of the year against a Spanish rival. But in Fuenlabrada none of that mattered, because that historic title, the first and until now the last that Partizan won in the highest continental competition, felt like own in the south of Madrid. He had won Partizan Belgrade, yes, but also the Partizan of Fuenlabrada.

A replica of that trophy resides today in the Fernando Martin Pavilionjust 500 meters from the Fuente de las Escaleras that became that historic night last 30 years instead of twinning for hundreds of people from Fuenlabrada who felt that triumph as their own.

They had reasons to do so, since Partizan, forced by the circumstances of the Balkan warhad adopted Fuenlabrada as his second home, where he forged his way to the title with six wins in seven games.

demographic boom

But this story begins much earlier and is the story of a demographic ‘boom’ that made Fuenlabrada “the youngest town in all of Europe, we came to have 6,300 births per year“, in the words of Joseph Quintanathen mayor of the town (he was between 1983 and 2002) and today president of the city’s basketball team, the Urbas Fuenlabrada. The demographic series shows, in effect, that the city to the south of Madrid went from having some 7,000 inhabitants in 1970 to become a city of about 150.000 in the early 1990s.

Fuenlabrada was then the youngest population in Europe, we had 6,300 births a year

The high birth rate, as well as the arrival of families from the Community and other parts of Spain, generated the need to build a sports offer powerful for children, as well as generating referents in elite sport that would allow fostering the sense of community of the adoptive people from Fuenlabrada towards their new city.

“We had the option of football, but I think at that time the team was in Third and it was very complicated, I needed a large investment to make the leap. We decided to build a pavilion that we gave the name of Ferdinand Martin (died in 1989) because we realized that he was a reference for children, they continually mentioned him in schools,” recalls Quintana.

Once the construction of the pavilion was underway, the mayor of the city set to work to attract leading teams to Fuenlabrada. Bank of Madrid then sponsored one basketball and one handball, both based in Alcala de Henares. There were negotiations with Jaime Third, then president of the banking entity, but they did not materialize. The pavilion was inaugurated in September 1991with a friendly between real Madrid and the Studentsand then he was going to be left without a fixed tenant.

In parallel, the FIBA made a decision that was going to allow a transitory solution. The three teams from the former Yugoslavia with a presence in the European Cup (the Partizan Serbian and the Split and the Cibona Croats) were forced to play at home abroad due to the war: Croatia had declared its independence a few months earlier and the escalation of violence had reached extreme heights in the region.

The role of Dorna

Dorna, a Spanish company now known for organizing MotoGP, was a recurring partner of FIBA ​​in terms of image, sponsorship and television rights and was commissioned to find a new home for these teams. Just opened the Fernando Martín, the first call was to Fuenlabrada.

“They offered us to host any of the three teams. We talked about it in the town hall and we considered that the most suitable would be Partizan, because it was the youngest of the three and we understood that it was an important factor to achieve a greater identification with the Fuenlabreños”, recalls Quintana.

The youth of Partizan was an important factor in achieving greater identification with the people of Fuenlabrada

Once the offer was accepted, the manager of Partizan and his coach, a very young man, moved to Madrid. Zeljko Obradovic who debuted on a bench after retiring from the courts a few months earlier. In Fuenlabrada he was going to start a career without equal in Europe, which has led him to be the most successful coach in the history of continental basketball: nine Euroleagues with five different teams.

“In addition to being an extraordinary coach, Zeljko is a very, very smart guy. So when we had that first meeting, he told us that they were willing to participate that any activity that we would like: signatures of autographs, training open doors, acts of advertising… They wanted to be part of the city so that the city would get involved with them. And what if they succeeded, “explains the then mayor.

Partizan were still based in Belgrade, but every two weeks they traveled to Spain to play their European Cup group stage matches at home, seven in total. They stayed during three or four days in a hotel in Madrid, they trained with the presence of children who went on excursions with the schools of Fuenlabrada and endeared themselves. The November 7 debuted at the Fernando Martín, sweeping (87-67) at the Maes Pils in Antwerp.

Given the scant interest aroused by two parallel experiences, that of Cibona in port Royal (Cádiz) and that of Split in A CorunaFuenlabrada responded with an attendance of around 80% for that game: “And then, in the other six games, it was 100%. There were people who stayed outside the pavilion because there was not room for everyone. The ID of Partizan with Fuenlabrada and of Fuenlabrada with Partizan was immediate”.

The pavilion was filled from the second game, there were people who stayed out due to lack of capacity

The Belgrade team won six of the seven games they played at the Fernando Martín. only the Studentsin a kind of derby, broke the spell. Alexander Varonathen vice-president of the student club, “and a good connoisseur of Fuenlabrada, because he had a company here, he was in charge of sending some 500 Dementia fans and the animation was more balanced”. He swept the collegiate team (75-95) in the only defeat that Partizan suffered in its host home.

The confrontation with the other Spanish team in the group, Joventut, who trained Lolo Sainz. They expected in Badalona to find a friendly atmosphere, but they ran into a cauldron in favor of the Serbian team, to the anger of the historic Spanish coach after losing the game by one point (76-75).

In the next game, against Bayer Leverkusen German, banners with the legend “Partizan de Fuenlabrada” appear spontaneously on the pavilion. The communion was already total, with the city dedicated to the one who had already become his team, aware that this coexistence was punctual. In fact, in March 1992 FIBA allows the Serbian team to play their quarter-final match at home against the Virtue of Bolonia. They won it and then won the Final Four in Istanbul, in the semifinals against Milan and in the final against Youth.

And the Fuenlabrada Stairs Fountain was filled to celebrate. And there everything is over. Or not.

Because if today the city to the south of Madrid has a classic team in the ACB League, a category in which it has played 23 of the last 24 seasons, it is partly because of that forced ‘erasmus’ of Partizan. “This experience allowed us to verify that in the city there was a basketball suitwhich people liked a lot. From the City Council we were looking for the people who had come to live in Fuenlabrada to identify with the city and we understood that promoting a own equipment was a good way to do it,” explains Quintana.

Partizan showed that there was a demand for basketball in the city, that people liked it a lot

The ‘Fuel it’, founded in 1983, played that season in the third category of professional basketball. The next four he does so in the second (Primera B first, EBA after the restructuring) and with a view to the 1996/97 campaign he buys the square of the Rocks Huesca for 400 million pesetas and debuts in ACB. He fell that same course, rose again the following year and has only been out of the elite in one more course, in 2004/05.

Tribute

In short, the legacy of those four months of life together, between November 1991 and February 1992, remains alive even today. Hence, this Saturday Urbas Fuenlabrada will commemorate the 30th anniversary of their match against Monbus Obradoiro with an exhibition of photographs, with the replica of that European Cup that Partizan gave them for the 20th anniversary and more activities.

In addition, the local team will wear negroas the Serbian always does, and the shirt with the dorsal 92referring to the year 1992. It will remain until September, in the context of the festivities of the municipality, a new friendly match between ‘Fuenla’ and Partizan to put the finishing touch to the anniversary.

Next week, it will be the Serbian team that celebrates the event in Belgrade, with the presence of a delegation of Fuenlabrada who has been invited to the party. Quintana will be absent from the appointment for a personal matter and will do so despite himself, since the relationship with Partizan remains alive and especially with Zeljko Obradovic, who this season has started a second stage on that bench, 28 years after completing the first.

“We talk a lot, we usually see each other once a year when he comes to spend the summer at his house in Barcelona or when he has come to Spain to play Euroleague games with the teams he has managed,” says Quintana.

Ask. And have you never suggested that you train Fuenlabrada?

Response. Nerd! His cache is very high for a club like ours, impossible.

P. Yes, but ‘Fuenla’ is not just any team for him…

R. That’s true. Well, maybe when he’s close to retirement [tiene 62 años]… Yes, maybe yes. It would be nice, really.

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