Villafranqueza’s endless ordeal

The main victim is the Intercity. But he’s not the only one. The CFI Alicante, the original tenant of the venue, has been unable to play or train at the Antonio Solana since last September. In fact, Alcoy had to be exiled in order to host Betis in their historic Copa del Rey tie.

Gustavo Siviero’s team, who barely completed the preseason in Villafranqueza, have already played more home games in Santa Pola than in Alicante, where they have their headquarters. On Sunday, in the regional derby against Eldense, he will complete six days of forced “flight” at the Manolo Maciá. In the capital they have only been able to face four teams, in none of the cases with the pitch in optimal conditions. In its home debut, in front of the Hércules, the grass already presented a very inappropriate aspect to play football without incurring a serious risk of suffering injuries due to the irregularity of the floor, full of bald spots and hardly any areas of dense grass.

Not being able to make normal use of Villafranqueza is subjecting the third-placed group 5, one point off the lead, to highly inadvisable weekly stress. Siviero’s painting has to constantly change, almost daily, the type of surface and the dimensions of the field, two factors that hinder the normal development of routines. The transfer of the material is also a major logistical problem.

The Department of Sports refused to cede the maintenance of the Antonio Solana Sports City to the SAD chaired by Salvador Martí, appealing to the fact that it has already paid a company to carry out the task and cannot recover the investment. Intercity accepts the decision, but does not understand how, having everything a simple solution, many clubs in the city, not only theirs, are allowed to be affected by this chronic failed reseeding four months after it began.

Low temperatures do not favor at all. The failure of the first attempt, caused by the appearance of a fungus, has delayed the tasks so much that winter ended up taking over. Now, according to Intercity sources, the Consistory assures that the replanting is in its final stretch. While it is ending, work has begun to replace the synthetic surface of the two adjoining pitches, which are also unused.

All winter without hot water in the showers

The underuse of the Villafranquez field, immersed in an endless change of its playing field, natural and, now also, artificial, is forcing the city’s clubs to spread out to other venues in the capital supervised by the City Council. One of them, the Juan Antonio Samaranch, has spent “three months without serving hot water” to its users. Those affected have denounced this situation. Members of the CFI Alicante, for example, yesterday explained to this newspaper the difficulties they are encountering in showering after games or work sessions.

“Barely a trickle of water comes out, without pressure and, the best thing that can happen to you is that it is not ice that falls on you, that it comes out minimally warm, although normally you have to shower with cold water,” explain the victims. celestial. In his opinion, the problem is that the electric water heaters used for tempering “do not work”. The Intercity players, who come to train there when they are lucky enough to have a slot (they share the facility with many other teams), have chosen to change at their own homes when they have to go there.

Another collateral damage derived from the endless replanting of Villafranqueza is the pilgrimage of the teams to exercise. In the case of the CFI Alicante, made up of non-professional players with jobs outside of sport, the situation worsens. They are told with such little room for maneuver from the venue to which they must go, that many days, some of them, cannot put themselves under the orders of José Vicente Lledó who, despite the disaster, has the third team in group 5 of the Valencian preference.