IT’S ALL GONE LOCO IN LA CORUNA
FFT goes in search of answers
Maria Pita defines what it is to be from A Coruna. On May 4, 1589, she watched her husband – an army captain defending the old city walls from Francis Drake’s English Armada – die from a crossbow to the head. Not only did she not flinch, Pita fought for her besieged Galician city. She picked up a spear and launched it at the English flag bearer, killing him.
“Quen tena honra, que me siga!” she screamed to her captivated troops – in local dialect Gallego, not Spanish – from A Coruna’s highest rampart. “Whoever has honour, follow me!” Pita’s forces then repelled the English with the same fierce determination Drake & Co. had exhibited in the English Channel a year previously.
Just over 400 years later, on May 20, 2000, nearly half of the city’s 245,000 population gathered in the square that bears Pita’s name, statue and battle cry to celebrate A Coruna’s most significant event in the interceding four centuries – Deportivo becoming just the ninth team in history to win La Liga.
A small club on Spain’s north-western tip, Depor were the embodiment of their war hero’s underdog spirit, bravery and will to win. Yet, as a dynasty beckoned, an economic catastrophe meant ‘Super Depor’ became little more than a yo-yo club between La Liga and the Segunda.
This summer, things
