Plaza de Toros de La Merced

[1] In its more than one hundred years of existence, the Merced bullring has borne witness to not only authentic glory in the Bull Festival, but also to the bullfighting figures from all eras who have filed through it.The seating was divided into two kinds of arches, some with an angular shape, with buttresses, while the others were conical, no other material having been used beyond hydraulic concrete for the foundation along with stone, brick, and iron for the rest.The ring's grand opening was timed to coincide with the Huelva Fair (festive observance of the Virgin of the Ribbon) on 5 September 1902 with bullfights in which the estocadas were delivered by Miguel Báez Quintero "El Litri" and Rafael González Madrid "Machaquito" to bulls supplied by the Marquess of Saltillo.Trains arrive packed with travellers, making it difficult for hotel owners, innkeepers, restaurateurs, etc., to provide shelter to all those who, eager to witness the most popular of our festivals, leave their home.The enormous structure – it had a seating capacity of 14,000 – had been built too near the Ría de Huelva (a ria) and it turned out that there were flaws in its design, which inevitably led to its closure in 1982, leaving the city for a while without a place to celebrate bullfighting spectacles; the Monumental bullring was torn down in 1997.[4] Businessmen turned their eyes to the old La Merced bullring, in particular a local one named José Luis Pereda García, who hitherto had had no links to the bullfighting world at all.La Merced was reinaugurated on 29 July of that year with bullfighters "El Litri" (who made one of his sporadic appearances, having given up regular ones in 1967), Curro Romero, and Pepe Luis Vázquez on the bill and bulls supplied by the Jandilla ranch.The celebrations were organized by city council and the Real Sociedad Colombina Onubense ("Huelva Royal Columbine Society"),[note 2] with bullfights undertaken by matadors Antonio Arana y Carmona "Jarana" and "Litri", with bulls supplied by the Ibarra ranch.[5] In 1892, within the framework of the programme of the quadricentenary, a corrida was held in which four bulls from the Clemente ranch fought the Seville bullfighter Manuel García Cuesta El Espartero o Maolillo.The next year, a celebration was organized for 3 August at which Manuel Báez Gómez "El Litri" was presented with the Golden Ear,[9] which he had won on the 16th of the previous month at the bullfights held by the Madrid Press Association.