Jesús Aranguren has passed away

Yesterday at the age of 66 Jesús Aranguren Merino passed away. He was a member of the Athletic Club Premier team over thirteen seasons (from 1962-63 and 1974-75) as well as the coach in Lezama for another seven seasons, from 1975 to 1978 as coach of the young players’ reserve (cadets and Bilbao Athletic), and from 1990 to 1994 as the general coordinator, a post from which he went on to train the Premier team during the 1991-92 season.

During his stint in the then recently created Athletic Junior team (1961-62), the team reached the final of our club’s first Junior Cup, losing to Sevilla by 2 – 0, the following season, 1962-63, he made his debut with Córdoba (18-11-1962) in first division, all before the age of 18, and managed to take the mythical Canito’s place, Canito had spent 15 seasons as the lord and owner of the left wing.

During the thirteen seasons that he played with our premier team he played 318 official matches and 56 friendly ones, winning the Copa twice (1969 and 1973). And was runner up another two times in the Copa (1966 and 1967) as well as runner up in the League (1969-70).

As soon as he had hung up his boots at Athletic, he got his coaching licence and started putting his skills into practice at the then recently created sports facilities in Lezama, of which he went on to become in charge of under president José Julián Lertxundi’s mandate (1990-94).

The funeral is on Wednesday, 23 March at 19:00 at the Jesuit Church in Portugalete.