Rayo Cantabria

Rayo Cantabria, formerly known as Real Racing Club de Santander "B" is the reserve team of Racing de Santander, a Spanish football team based in Santander, in the autonomous community of Cantabria. Founded in 1926 as a separate club, affiliated with Racing de Santander from 1951 and incorporated formally into the professional club's structure in 1993, the team currently plays in , holding home games at La Albericia, with a capacity of 1,000 spectators. History Rayo Cantabria was founded in 1926 as Gimnástica de Miranda, later being renamed Sociedad Deportiva Rayo Cantabria. Having competed independently in the Cantabrian Regional Championship, in 1946 they were promoted to the third tier of Spanish football, the old Tercera División, for the first time; the following campaign, they faced the biggest local club Racing de Santander (or Real Santander as they were known at the time), Rayo being relegated and Racing promoted. In the 1950–51 Tercera División season, Rayo came up against the Racing youth team, Juventud RS with both entering the relegating playoffs; Juventud went down and folded soon after, and from that time Rayo became the Racing farm team. They went on to spent 20 consecutive years at the third level, coming close to promotion on a few occasions, also performing the important task in developing young local players, some of whom (including Paco Gento, Marquitos, Ico Aguilar, Pedro Zaballa, Vicente Miera and Nando Yosu) went on to great success. They temporarily disassociated from Racing in the 1968–69 and 1969–70 seasons when both were in the same division. After league restructuring in the mid 1970s, Rayo played just one further season at the third level (now Segunda División B) – that was in 1987–88, and they were relegated. Further elite players produced via a spell in the team included Tuto Sañudo, Juan Carlos, Manolo Preciado, Pedro Munitis and José María Ceballos.