Early years (1909–1935)

Levante UD was formerly (formally?) registered as Levante Football Club on 9 September 1909 (celebrating its 100th anniversary on 9 September 2009). Thus Levante is the oldest football club in the city of Valencia, with rival team Valencia CF not being formed until 1919.

Levante shares its name with the eastern region of the Iberian Peninsula, with Spain's east coast, the coast over which the sun rises (levantar in Spanish), with the Levant wind that comes from the east, and with the Levante beach in La Malvarrosa where Levante Football Club played some of its earliest fixtures.

Levante's earliest games were played at La Platjeta, near the docks on a plot of land owned by a perfume entrepreneur. Its next ground was also near the port area, and the club gradually became associated with the working class. In 1919, the side played Valencia CF for the first time, losing 0–1; the game marked the inauguration of the recently built ground at Algirós. In 1928, Levante FC won its first trophy, the Valencian Championship.

1909 also saw the birth of Gimnástico Football Club, which originally played at Patronato de la Juventud Obrera, being then named Gimnástico-Patronato. In 1919, Gimnástico became the champion of the Campeonato de Valencia, beating CD Castellón in the two-leg finals; the next year, the club became Real Gimnástico Football Club, after being granted royal patronage by Alfonso XIII, and they reached the final of Campeonato Regional de Levante, but lost to Club Deportivo Aguileño. In 1931, with the founding of the Second Spanish Republic, the club dropped the Real from its name.

In 1934–35, both Levante and Gimnástico debuted in the second division, when the league was expanded from 10 teams to 24. In 1935, Levante won the Campeonato Levante-Sur, a competition that featured teams from Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia, and subsequently reached the semi-finals of the Spanish Cup, consecutively beating Valencia and Barcelona before losing to eventual runners-up Sabadell.