Ontinyent cf · History

Onteniente Club de Fútbol won its Tercera División group in 1962-63 and went up to the Spanish second division through the promotion play-offs. That was the first of five seasons the club from Ontinyent, in the province of Valencia, spent in the second tier. The club was formed through a merger in 1931, changed its name several times, played its home games at El Clariano and withdrew from competition in March 2019 because of its debts.

Origins and foundation

Organised football in Ontinyent began with Club Deportivo Onteniente, founded in 1923. On 30 March 1931 that club merged with CD Ideal to form Onteniente Foot-ball Club, which was entered in the register of associations of the Civil Government of Valencia. The team reached the Tercera División in 1943 but had to withdraw because of debts, and it was kept out of competition until 1947. That year it returned as Peña Deportiva Ideal, which is why some sources give 1947 as its founding year. It was renamed Onteniente Peña Ideal in 1950 and got back to the Tercera División in 1955.

El Clariano

The club played at Estadio El Clariano from then on. The ground opened on 10 January 1951 with a friendly against Valencia CF, which the visitors won 9-2. At first it had a covered half-length stand on the west side and a narrow terrace opposite. An open terrace was built at the south end around 1963, and in 1973 the west stand was extended along the full length of the pitch. Floodlights went up in the 1990s. An artificial pitch was laid in 2006 and replaced in 2016. The ground holds about 5,000 people.

The second-division years

In 1960-61 Onteniente finished second in their group behind Olímpic de Xàtiva and lost the promotion play-off to Burgos. Two years later they won the Tercera and went up to the Spanish second division. They finished tenth in 1963-64, their first season at that level, and were relegated the following year after coming fifteenth. A second Tercera title in 1967-68 took them back up. They finished fifteenth in 1968-69 and ninth in 1969-70. In 1970-71 they came eighteenth and went down, and they never played in the second tier again.

Between the third and fourth tiers

The club took part in the first season of Segunda División B in 1977-78 and stayed in that division until 1980. It returned in 1994-95, and in 1995 it took the Valencian name Ontinyent Club de Fútbol. It moved between Segunda B and Tercera until it was relegated in 2000, and it did not get back to the third tier until 2007-08. Across all its spells the club played 17 seasons in Segunda División B and 43 in the Tercera División.

The 2010 play-offs

Its best season after the 1960s was 2009-10. Ontinyent finished third in Group III of Segunda B and qualified for the promotion play-offs. In the first round they beat Guadalajara 2-0 at home and 3-1 away. They then knocked out Eibar 3-1 on aggregate. In the final round they drew 1-1 with AD Alcorcón at El Clariano and lost the return leg 3-2 on 20 June 2010. Alcorcón won promotion. Ontinyent spent four more seasons in Segunda B and dropped to the Tercera in 2014 after finishing twentieth.

The last promotion and the end

In 2017 the team went up again through the play-offs. They beat Deportivo Alavés B 3-0 in the first leg at El Clariano, lost the return leg in Vitoria 3-0 after extra time and won promotion on penalties on 25 June 2017. In 2017-18 they finished fifth in Group III of Segunda División B. The financial crisis came to a head the following season. With unpaid wages and debts of more than one million euros, the club withdrew from Segunda División B in March 2019 and stopped operating. Former players and supporters founded Ontinyent 1931 CF that same year. The new club started in the seventh tier and reached the Tercera Federación in 2023.