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With Real Betis playing temporarily at La Cartuja and Sevilla FC rooted in Nervión, football offers a way into a city whose attachments reach well beyond its famous centre.

For someone planning a football weekend in Seville, Real Betis currently presents an instructive complication. The stadium most closely associated with the club is not where the first team plays its home matches.

The Benito Villamarín stands in Heliópolis, south of the historic centre. While it is being redeveloped, Betis are playing at La Cartuja, in another part of the city. The club’s own history records the 2025/26 season as the beginning of that temporary stay. Real Betis club history

A ticket tells a visitor where to go. Understanding why the other address still matters takes longer.

That distance between a match venue and a sense of home is a useful place to begin in Seville. Across the city, Sevilla FC has its own enduring association with Nervión and the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán. Following these clubs takes a visitor beyond the cathedral precinct and into neighbourhoods that give football a more particular address.

Heliópolis, even from elsewhere

The Benito Villamarín belongs to a period when Seville was extending and remaking itself. The stadium opened in 1929 as part of the urban programme associated with the Ibero-American Exposition. The exhibition’s footprint reached through María Luisa Park and the city’s southern expansion towards what is now Heliópolis. Seville Tourism: stadium history, regionalist architecture guide

Betis established its home there after the Spanish Civil War, in 1939. The club had already arranged to lease the ground before the war; ownership followed in 1961. Those dates describe a gradual attachment: a stadium built for a major civic event became a place shaped by the repeated use of a football club and its supporters. Real Betis: the return of league football, the stadium purchase

Supporters waving green-and-white Real Betis flags inside the Benito Villamarín stadium in Heliópolis. — Supporters and green-and-white flags at the Benito Villamarín before the current redevelopment. Image supplied by Real Betis Balompié. This archive photograph shows Heliópolis, not the team’s current temporary home at La Cartuja.

A neighbourhood acquires meaning through repetition. A familiar approach to the ground, a meeting place, the journey with someone who first brought you: these are modest things individually. Over many seasons, they become part of what going to football means.

The temporary move to La Cartuja makes that relationship easier to notice. Betis can organise home fixtures elsewhere in Seville while Heliópolis remains central to the club’s identity. Supporting the team now involves making room for a different journey without discarding the old one.

For a visitor, the distinction matters in practical terms too. A photograph of the Benito Villamarín is not a guide to the present matchday destination. Betis confirmed in October 2026 that its home games are being played at La Cartuja. The current fixture and access information should determine the journey.

It also changes what a visit to Heliópolis can offer. With the first team playing elsewhere, the district remains part of the story: a place to understand how closely a club’s identity can become tied to a particular piece of the city.

Nervión has its own address

Sevilla FC leads the visitor east, towards Nervión.

The Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán opened in 1958. Its setting places the club within the everyday city, with the Nervión and Gran Plaza metro stops serving the area. The surrounding district is part of the approach to the match, rather than a view glimpsed only from the stadium entrance. Seville Tourism: Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán, stadium access

Music gives that attachment another form. Sevilla’s centenary anthem, composed by Javier Labandón, known as El Arrebato, emerged in 2005 and became an important expression of the club’s support. It is a relatively recent addition to a much longer history, a reminder that football traditions continue to be made. Sevilla FC: club and anthems

The rivalry with Betis gives these places additional intensity. It also creates a temptation for the visiting writer: to assign each club a fixed personality and divide the whole city neatly between them.

The stadium map cannot carry that explanation. It identifies important roots, without telling us where every supporter lives or how every family chose its club. Heliópolis and Nervión provide starting points for understanding attachment. They leave room for lives that cross those boundaries.

The city around the football

Seville rewards time away from the stadiums.

The Giralda began as an Almohad minaret and later became the cathedral’s bell tower. In the Alcázar, Islamic remains coexist with later building, including the Mudéjar palace of Pedro I. These are substantial histories of construction, conquest and adaptation, visible within the same urban fabric. UNESCO: Seville’s monumental complex

They help explain why Seville feels different from Valencia, the Spanish city visited earlier in this series. They do not provide a shortcut to explaining how Sevillians support a football club.

Music deserves the same care. Flamenco has a strong Andalusian setting and an essential contribution from Gitano communities. UNESCO describes its transmission through families, social groups and local associations. Seville’s own cultural guide points visitors towards neighbourhood peñas as well as performance venues and festivals. UNESCO: flamenco, Seville Tourism: flamenco

There is something useful here for a football visitor: an invitation to pay attention to how people sustain a shared practice. Songs depend on people who know them, teach them and find occasions to perform them. A stadium anthem and flamenco have their own histories, but both reward listening to the communities around the sound.

Food offers a quieter introduction. Espinacas con garbanzos—spinach with chickpeas, seasoned with ingredients including cumin and garlic—is among the city’s established tapas. A meal before travelling to the ground can give the day a local rhythm without requiring an elaborate itinerary. Seville Tourism: espinacas con garbanzos

The river, Triana, the historic centre and the southern districts need more time than the gaps between two appointments. Leave part of the day unfilled.

Finding the right ground

A visitor can begin with a few simple decisions: which club, which fixture, which stadium.

For Betis, that means checking La Cartuja information rather than following an old route to the Benito Villamarín. For Sevilla FC, it means looking at the current arrangements for the Sánchez-Pizjuán. Tickets and match-specific travel instructions should come from official club channels; a derby requires particular attention to the arrangements for that fixture.

Beyond those practicalities, a weekend here can accommodate different kinds of attention. There is the concentrated time of a match, and the slower work of learning where a neighbourhood sits within the city.

Seville gives this series a chance to examine both. Betis’s temporary move makes the persistence of Heliópolis especially visible. Sevilla’s association with Nervión offers another way to follow a club through its surroundings.

For someone arriving from abroad, learning the correct stadium address is the first step. Learning why another address still matters is part of getting to know the city.

Reporting note: This feature was prepared with AI assistance, reviewed by a human editor, and based on published sources and background information supplied by Real Betis Balompié’s Communications Department. It is not an account of an on-site visit. Real Betis supplied a stadium photograph and crest for editorial use; editorial responsibility remains with FootballGravity.

Featured image: Seville Cathedral and the Giralda. Photograph by Henrique Ferreira / Unsplash, published 5 November 2017. Editorial layout and official logo: FootballGravity. No generative editing.

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Eleven Real Betis players walked onto the pitch before their match against Getafe on 17 September 2026. Beside them were eleven companions, wearing the club’s green and white. This time, the escorts were some of Betis’ oldest members.

The invitation gave older supporters a place in a ceremony usually associated with childhood. It also offered a different way to think about the relationship between a club and the people who sustain it. Supporters spend years giving football their time and affection. Here was an opportunity for football to give something memorable back.

The image remains worth spending time with after the match has passed. Walking onto a pitch alongside a player can be a dream at any age. A club has the means to make that dream possible.

A place in the Betis family

In its announcement, the Real Betis Foundation connected the Getafe occasion to its Older People’s Week, scheduled for 28 September–4 October. The programme included letters delivered to a care home through De Béticos a Abuelos, bringing generations into contact, and visits by older groups to La Cartuja. The foundation described its purpose as recognising older people’s contribution and keeping them actively involved in the Betis community.

Participation also extends to playing. A separate club announcement about Walking Football traces the project to 2022. Its advertised eligibility was women over 40 and men over 50, all club members. Running and balls above head height are prohibited, and contact is penalised. The adapted game offers another route into football as people grow older.

Those routes matter because people do not all want the same relationship with their club. One person may want to play again; another may enjoy exchanging letters or visiting the stadium. An invitation onto the pitch adds an extraordinary experience to those more regular forms of connection. Together, they give belonging somewhere to go.

The children beside the players

There is a useful historical connection to the familiar sight of children accompanying footballers. At the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, FIFA and UNICEF worked together to promote children’s rights through the Say Yes for Children campaign. The Japan Committee for UNICEF’s contemporary materials record the campaign’s connection with the tournament.

A UEFA report published on 11 June 2002 described children accompanying each player at every match. It connected that visible role to football’s responsibility towards children, including their access to recreation and primary education. The walk onto the pitch carried a message beyond the coming game.

This establishes what the partnership did at that tournament; it does not establish when player escorts were first invented. What makes the connection interesting is the use of a few highly visible minutes to recognise people whose lives extend far beyond the stadium.

Betis’ invitation can be read as widening that possibility to another generation. That is an interpretation of the two occasions, rather than evidence of a formal connection between their organisers. Children retain every reason to be there. Older supporters have reasons of their own.

Japan’s supporters discover a new role

In Japan, a related idea has taken root through Be supporters!, an initiative begun by Suntory Wellness in December 2020 and promoted nationally with the J.League from 2021. It invites older people, including care-home residents and people living with dementia, to support local clubs. Its guiding phrase translates as moving from being supported to becoming someone who supports.

In an August 2025 announcement, the J.League reported participation across approximately 230 facilities, involving around 10,000 people cumulatively. Dating those figures matters: they describe the programme at that point, rather than its present size.

The league’s earlier account, from September 2022, included an 86-year-old who began studying Spanish after becoming a fan of a Spanish player, and a 90-year-old who normally used a walking frame taking steps independently to see a favourite player’s photograph. These are individual experiences reported by the organisers, rather than evidence of a general clinical effect.

The language-learning story is particularly telling. A new interest opens a door into another country and its language. There is a player to follow, a match to anticipate, something to talk about with somebody else. Curiosity continues to make demands on the world, long after the age at which society tends to expect it.

Betis and Be supporters! approach this relationship from different directions. In Seville, established members received an invitation to share the players’ entrance. In Japan, people accustomed to receiving assistance gain an opportunity to encourage a team. Both allow older people to take part in the present life of football.

Sustaining the people who sustain a club

Environmental action remains essential to football’s future. The sport depends on habitable places, usable pitches and communities able to live with a changing climate. Alongside that work, social sustainability asks how people remain connected to the institutions they care about through different stages of life.

The J.League includes Be supporters! within the People dimension of its sustainability activities. It is a useful reminder that sustaining a club also involves sustaining relationships: making room for someone whose mobility, circumstances or daily routine has changed.

A supporter can stay with a club longer than any player, manager or owner. Across those years, the contribution takes many forms, from buying tickets to bringing another generation to a first match. The club becomes part of family memory. Recognition of that commitment can be deeply personal, especially when it offers a new experience rather than simply commemorating the past.

Other clubs can find versions of these ideas that fit their own communities. A matchday invitation can sit beside regular contact with care homes or opportunities for adapted play. The arrangements need to follow the people involved: their wishes, their comfort and the assistance that makes participation possible. A shared walk onto the pitch becomes more meaningful when there are ways to remain connected afterwards.

A memory for life

We often describe a child’s visit to a stadium as a memory for life. The phrase belongs just as naturally to an experience made much later. The value of a new memory does not diminish because someone already has decades of memories behind them.

For the older members invited to accompany Betis’ players, the occasion made room for another chapter in their relationship with the club. We cannot know what each person felt without asking them. But we can recognise the generosity of making that space available, and the possibilities it leaves for others.

Football has long understood the joy of giving a child a first glimpse of the pitch. It can keep creating those moments throughout a person’s life. Dreams have no age.