Burgos

Twenty-three matches into the 2019–20 season, Burgos had won every single one of them. Then the pandemic shut the competition down, and the Royal Spanish Handball Federation, weighing an unfinished table with a perfect record sitting at the top, promoted UBU San Pablo Burgos to the División de Honor Plata anyway. A title never finished on the court, awarded from an office instead.

The club playing under that name was not, strictly, the club that carries the same badge today by continuous history. Club Deportivo BMB was set up in 2005 to replace Club Balonmano Ciudad de Burgos, which had just folded, and for over a decade the new entity existed without playing a competitive match. It only took the court in 2016, once the University of Burgos and the college of St Paul put their names behind it as sponsors, and Burgos went out as UBU San Pablo Burgos.

They play at the Polideportivo Municipal El Plantío, 2,500 capacity, in red and black, and the crowd knows the team as Los Cidianos, a nod to El Cid. There is a derby, too, against Tubos Aranda Villa de Aranda, close enough for the fixture to carry its own name, the Derbi Burgalés.

Pedro Martins, the Brazilian line player, has been the closest thing the squad has to a fixture of its own, enough of one that his contract now runs to 2026/27.

Burgos have never lifted the Liga ASOBAL or the Copa del Rey. The one trophy on the shelf is that Segunda División Nacional title, and it was won going 23 for 23.