Vera – Bullring

Vera – Bullring

Vera Bullring is located in C/ Mojigato (street) and Ctra. Garrucha (road), near Las Viñas Stadium, in the locality of Vera, Almería Province.

The bullfighting celebrations in Vera go back to the first years after the conquest by the Christian troops that took place in 1488. Back in those days these enjoyments consisted of lancing cattle by the most skilful horsemen.

They took place in the main squares of the municipalities, the occasion being a royal wedding, the birth of a prince, the day of the locality´s patron saint, etc.

The oldest reference in Vera is 1537 when a bullfight took place to mark the return of emperor Charles V to Spain in a parenthesis of its wars with the king of France.

Throughout the XVI and XVII centuries fiestas continued to be celebrated, becoming less frequent in the XVIII when they lost the new ruling dynasty´s favour. The Bourbones dictated different prohibitions against the celebration of these bullfights and the popular classes resisted to accept them, bullfighting transformed itself, granting greater protagonism to bullfighters on foot.

During the XIX century bullfighting increased in all of Spain, many bullrings were built in the main municipalities. In Vera, the economic and demographic development initiated around 1840, would create the conditions for the construction of a bullfighting ring.

The 25 of September of 1879 the Vera Bullring was inaugurated, developed by lawyer Tomás de Haro Haro in the place known as Pago del Mojigato. The first fighter was the matador from Madrid Gonzalo Mora accompanied by Jose Sanchez Laborda.

From this date on, different bullfighting fiestas were celebrated up until the end of the century when they ceased. In order to celebrate them again, in 1904 a group of neighbours formed the “Civil Bullfighting Society Veratense” whose primary target was to rehabilitate the deteriorated ring. The “Popular Bull and Aviation Company” collaborated in concluding the works and finally in 1913 a bullfight could be celebrate again.

Up until the 1930s several bullfights took place in Vera but as of then they ended and another period of obscurity befell the Vera Bullring.

In 1954 the ring was auctioned by the tax collectors after no-payment of property taxes, and was acquired privately by the mayor Francisco Rodriguez Segura. He himself donated it to the municipality.

In the 60s and 70s the ring went trough its golden years. Sponsored by Francisco Montoro, and managed by bullfighting entrepreneurs Luis Baquedano Garcia and his son Luis Baquedano Achón, both in charge of the ring, the main bullfighters of the day performed in the ring. Among them: Paco Camino, Antonio Chenel “Antoñete”, “El Cordobes”, Jaime Ostos, Antonio Bienvenida, Antonio Jose Galan, Alvaro Domecq, the Peralta brothers…

The 24th of September of 1983 the last bullfight of this splendid phase took place, forced by the deplorable state of abandonment suffered by the ring.

A group of Vera neigbbours, admirers of the bullfight fiesta, united in 1990 to form the Vera Bullfighting Club with the objective to foment the restoration of the bullfighting ring. Due to their efforts and thouse of the succeeding municipal governments, the works could be finished and on the 25 of November 1997, during the celebrations of the Patron Saint Cleofás, the ring was reinagurated with a bull fight, this starting a new phase in the history of the Vera Bullring.

Since then, the celebrations in the ring are frequent as well as the works to improve the facilities and surroundings and to make of this place a reason for pride for the city.

The 15th of June 2002 the Bullfighting Museum was inaugurated within the Ring, to lodge in it the testimonies of its history and to offer them to the visitors.

Vera Town Hall