Antonio Ramírez

Antonio Ramírez Gálmez died at the age of 91. His death was reported on 8 October 2026 by the Castellón newspaper Mediterráneo, in an obituary by Juan Francisco de la Ossa that was also carried by Sport, which said the club had lost one of the protagonists of its history. The cause of death was not made public, and details of funeral arrangements were not included in those reports.

Antonio Ramírez Gálmez was born on 17 February 1935 in Castellón de la Plana, on Spain's Mediterranean coast. Little has been published about his childhood or parents. He began playing in the football of his home province with Atlético Saguntino, and as a teenager he moved to CD Mestalla, the reserve team of Valencia CF, where he was coached by Juan Ramón.

At Mestalla he played three matches in Segunda División at the age of 18, an early start for a goalkeeper in the 1950s.

Ramírez was promoted to Valencia's first team under Carlos Iturraspe at the age of 20. The club history site ciberche notes that he showed a calm unusual for his inexperience and was seen as an alternative to the established goalkeeper Timor. He stayed with the first team for two seasons and played seven official matches, conceding 15 goals, before Valencia decided to keep faith with Timor.

In 1957 he joined Hércules CF in Alicante, where he had a settled spell, playing close to 60 official matches in Segunda División between 1957 and 1961.

In the summer of 1961 he signed for Real Murcia and was the regular goalkeeper throughout the 1961-62 season under Ignacio Eizaguirre. When José Manuel Llopis took over in 1962, José García Campillo became first choice, but Ramírez remained in the squad and was part of the team that won promotion to Primera División in 1963.

He then joined CD Castellón, the club of his home city. According to the club history En el escudo de tu Historia by Conrado Marín and Miguel Ángel Serer, he played 34 matches in the 1965-66 season, when Castellón won promotion from Tercera División to Segunda División. He remained with the club until 1968, making 71 appearances over three seasons, and then retired from playing.

After hanging up his boots, Ramírez settled in Castellón de la Plana. Football stayed in the family: Marín and Serer's club history records that two of his sons, Alberto and Carlos Ramírez, also played for CD Castellón. Other details of his private life have not been widely reported.

Ramírez is remembered above all as the goalkeeper of the Castellón team that left Tercera División in 1966. Sixty years on, Mediterráneo wrote that the squad remains part of the supporters' memory. In June 2016 the club honoured that team on the 50th anniversary of the promotion, and Ramírez was among the seven former players who confirmed they would attend.

His career, which spanned Valencia, Hércules, Real Murcia and Castellón, also made him part of a generation of Valencian goalkeepers who reached the top flight young, and his sons continued the family's link with the club.