Pioneers

In L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, in Catalonia, American football is played on natural grass inside an athletics complex. The Complex Esportiu L'Hospitalet Nord, on Avinguda de Manuel Azaña, has a running track around the pitch, floodlights and room for 3,000 spectators.

The club dates from 1988 and played in the first Spanish championship that same year. Its big years came much later. The Liga Nacional de Fútbol Americano (LNFA), the country's top league, went to L'Hospitalet in 2005 and 2008.

Much of that run was built on American imports, players who arrived from college programmes. Brian Voges came from Nebraska Cornhuskers and Sean Hayes from Harvard Crimson. Below the senior side, the youth teams were producing results of their own. The juniors won the LNFA Junior Championship in 2007, and the cadets took the LNFA Cadet Championship in 2013.

The fixture that matters most is against the Badalona Dracs. Both clubs took part in that first championship in 1988, and both have been part of Spanish gridiron football from the start. Their meetings are known as the Catalan derby, the derbi català.