On 8 December 1906 the football team of a gym in A Coruña played its first match, and that day became Deportivo's birthday. On 8 December 2026 "Depor" turns 120 years old. And it celebrates where it belongs: back in La Liga.

A fencing gym gives birth to a team

Football came to A Coruña through José María Abalo, a young man who had studied in England and taught the game to his friends. Soon after, young people from a popular gym in the city began training with him. That gym was the Sala Calvet, on Calle Galera.

The Sala Calvet had been set up by fencing champion Federico Fernández-Amor Calvet. Its members did fencing, rowing, tennis and cycling. In 1906 its football section was born, the Club Deportivo de la Sala Calvet, with Luis Cornide as its first president.

The sources do not fully agree on the date: Spanish Wikipedia says the club already existed in March 1906. But 8 December is the day of the first match and the date that stuck. Shortly afterwards King Alfonso XIII granted the club the title "Real", meaning "Royal".

Blue and white stripes

Deportivo has almost always worn blue and white vertical stripes with blue shorts and blue socks. The colours became official for matches in 1912. That is why fans call the team "Os Brancoazuis", the blue and whites.

The team's very first strip, however, was not striped. It is described in the minutes of the founders' first recorded meeting. In 2016, for the 110th anniversary, the club released a tribute shirt inspired by it: a grey top, black shorts and black socks with white hoops.

A crest with a belt and a crown

The crest keeps elements of the Sala Calvet emblem: a belt wrapped around a banner. Its sky-blue diagonal stripe recalls the maritime flag of A Coruña and the flag of Galicia. Above it sits the crown of royal patronage.

The crown and the "Real" title were removed during the Second Spanish Republic and returned later. Since October 1944 the team's home has been Riazor, right by the Atlantic. The shirt has been made by names such as Umbro, adidas, Joma, Lotto and Macron, and today it is made by Kappa.

The "Super Depor" era

In the early 1990s Arsenio Iglesias built a side that frightened the giants, with Brazilians Bebeto and Mauro Silva. In 1994 the title slipped away in the cruellest way: Djukić missed a stoppage-time penalty on the final day and the league went to Barcelona. But the team did not break, and a year later it lifted the Copa del Rey.

On 19 May 2000 the dream came true: with a 2-0 win over Espanyol at Riazor, Deportivo won its first and only Spanish league title. Two years later it beat Real Madrid 2-1 in the cup final, at the Bernabéu and on Real's 100th birthday. The Spanish called it the "Centenariazo".

Champions League nights and legends

In April 2004 Depor lost 4-1 to Milan in the first leg of the quarter-final. In the return at Riazor it won 4-0 and reached the last four, in one of the competition's greatest comebacks. There it was stopped by Porto.

The blue and white shirt has been worn by goalkeeper Juan Acuña, Dutch striker Roy Makaay, the magician Valerón and Djalminha. Captain Fran holds the record with 700 appearances. After years in the lower divisions, in May 2026 a 2-0 win at Valladolid, with two goals from Bil Nsongo, took the team back to the top flight, eight years on.

Celebrate with us

One hundred and twenty years after the Sala Calvet, Deportivo's stripes are returning to Spain's big stadiums. Few teams have lived through so many peaks and falls with such faith from their fans.

Happy birthday, Depor! May Riazor be full and may next season feel like the golden days of "Super Depor".

See our collectible jerseys at sportarena.gr.

Photo: Riazor stadium in A Coruña – Bene Riobó, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.