O Vao

Balaídos was built with money the city did not really have. A budget of one million pesetas was meant to have it ready by the end of 1926; the works stretched on for three years instead, and the ground did not open until 30 December 1928, with Celta beating Real Unión 7-0 in the first match played there.

The stadium has grown and shrunk more than once. It opened with room for 22,000, swelled past 35,000 by the 1950s, and hit its ceiling of 45,000 after the rebuild ahead of the 1982 World Cup, when the old Río stand came down and a new main stand went up under a metal roof, alongside a new Gol end. Standing areas were removed in 1996, and capacity has settled since into the low twenty thousands.

Part of that 1982 rebuild involved something more than concrete: the Lagares river, which ran alongside the ground, was culverted and buried to make room for construction, so the stadium now sits on land the river used to cross.

The pitch remains natural grass, laid out over the regulation 105 by 70 metres, in a ground whose Galician name has stuck through more than one official rebranding.