The Herculaneum Society revealed a meaningful honour this week in Alicante, where the club based there appointed Arsenio Iglesias, the former manager of Hércules, as an Honorary Member. Iglesias recently passed away, and his legacy with the club is remembered for shaping a defining era in Hércules history. His work left a lasting imprint on the team and the community, highlighted by the enduring respect of supporters and historians alike. The Society frames Iglesias’s recognition as a tribute to a period when Hércules reached new levels of ambition and identity, a time many fans still regard as the club at its best.
During the mid-1970s, Iglesias oversaw four seasons in charge of Hércules. Under his guidance, the club earned promotion to the First Division and posted remarkable finishes of fifth and sixth place in consecutive seasons. Those top-half results stand out as some of the club’s strongest performances in the highest tier of Spanish football, underscoring the significance of the era Iglesias helped forge and the strong connection between the coach and the club’s golden period.
Supporters and football historians alike sense that those achievements helped shape a defining chapter in Hércules’s history. The Herculaneum Society, dedicated to safeguarding Alicante’s football heritage and the city’s broader sporting memory, framed Iglesias’s honorary status as recognition of a time when the club’s identity and aspirations rose to new heights and left a lasting cultural footprint in the local sports scene.
The Wizard who created the best Hercules in history
The announcement was welcomed with appreciation by the association, which has long worked to rescue and commemorate Alicante’s football legacy. The Society stressed that Iglesias’s influence remains a benchmark for both the club and the city, illustrating how a coach’s strategic vision and leadership can elevate a team and leave a durable imprint on local sports lore. The recognition acknowledges a period when Hércules not only competed at the top level but also captured the imagination of fans who remember those seasons with pride and affection.