Gimnastic de Tarragona

Club Gimnastic de Tarragona, commonly known as Gimnastic Tarragona or sometimes just Nastic, is a Spanish sports club based in Tarragona, in the autonomous community of Catalonia. Its football team plays in Primera Division RFEF – Group 2.

The club was founded in 1886 and is one of the oldest football clubs in Spain. It has teams competing in athletics, basketball, tennis, gymnastics, table tennis and futsal, but a football team was not formed until 1914. The team enjoyed a three-year La Liga spell in its beginnings (1947–50).

Since 1972, the team has played home games at Nou Estadi, which seats 14,593 spectators.

History

The club was founded on 1 March 1886 by a group of fifteen people who met at the Cafe del Centre on Rambla Nova. The majority of the club's early members belonged to the upper middle class and, as the club name suggests, was initially founded to promote gymnastics. Later the club members began to organise fencing, hiking, boxing and cycling. In 1914, the club absorbed a local football club called the Club Olimpic de Tarragona and consequently formed its own football team using the former colours of Olimpic: red, white and black. In those days the team played home matches in the Avenida Catalunya stadium.

In January 1918, Gimnastic made its debut as a football team in the Campionat de Catalunya and by 1927 were crowned champions in the second division. In the 1943–44 season the team appeared in the Tercera Division and in the following season moved up to the Segunda Division.

In the 1946–47 season Nastic finished second in the second division and entered the La Liga. In 1947 it also reached the Copa del Generalisimo semi-final but lost to the RCD Espanyol, having beaten the FC Barcelona in the previous round.

The team finished its debut first division season in seventh place, with the highlight of the season coming on 11 January 1948 with a 3–1 win against the Real Madrid at the Bernabeu, thus becoming th

This page also has a version in other languages :  Химнастик Таррагона (russian)