HANS MAX GAMPER-HAESSIG: MORE THAN A FOUNDER

The Grandma near the Camp Nou, Barcelona

Today, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Chapter 34).

The weather in Barcelona is too hot and the levels of humidity are increasing day by day. The Grandma has decided to visit the Maternitat Park, a beautiful park near her home, searching shadow and air enough to avoid this terrible weather. This park is in front of the Camp Nou, the stadium of Futbol Club Barcelona, and The Grandma has taken advantage to homage and remember its founder Hans Gamper, aka Joan Gamper, one of the most complete athletes at the beginning of the 20th century who died on a day like today eighty-eight years ago.

More information: Articles 1

Hans Max Gamper-Haessig (22 November 1877-30 July 1930), known as Joan Gamper was a Swiss football pioneer, versatile athlete and club president. He founded FC Zürich and FC Barcelona football clubs.

Hans Max Gamper-Haessig

Hans-Max Gamper was born in Winterthur, Switzerland. He was the eldest son and third of five children born to August Gamper and Rosine Emma Haessig. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was eight and the family moved to Zurich. He became a citizen of the city and in his later youth started to learn his craft as a tradesman in an apprenticeship at the silk trade house Grieder at the centrally located Paradeplatz. 

As a youngster, Gamper was a keen cyclist and runner. Throughout his life he was a lover of all sports and, apart from football, he also played rugby union, tennis and golf. In Switzerland, he was highly regarded as a footballer. His first football club was Excelsior Zurich which was playing in the same colours, red and blue, as later FC Barcelona. 

After some members of Excelsior split off to form FC Turicum Zurich, they reunited with Excelsior in 1896 to form FC Zurich. Gamper was a co-founder and the first captain of the clubs history. 

More information: Swiss Info

In the early years of football in Switzerland, it was allowed to play for an indefinite number of teams from other cities as a guest player in friendly games, Gamper is known to have played among others two games for FC Winterthur and FC Basel. 

Joan Gamper

Hans Gamper representing FC Zurich, founded as a polideportivo, was in 1898 holder of the Swiss records over the 800m and 1600m track distances. 

He also organised the first international athletics competition in Zurich during autumn of the same year. Today, this event is one of the most renowned international athletics events worldwide, the Weltklasse Zurich, organised by FC Zurich spin-off LC Zurich. 

In 1897, work took him temporarily to Lyon in France, where he played rugby for Athletique Union. The other names they called him, all came from the difficulty the Catalan people had, pronouncing the German H and G: Hans became Kans, Gamper became Kamper. But he is most known as Johannes, becoming Joan Gamper.

More information: Barcelonas

In 1899, he went to Barcelona to visit his uncle, Emili Gaissert, who was living there. He was on his way to Africa to help set up some sugar trading companies but fell in love with the Catalan city and decided to stay put. He would later become a fluent Catalan speaker and adopt the Catalan version of his name, Joan Gamper. 

Joan Gamper and F.C.Barcelona team in 1910

As an accountant, he found work with Crédit Lyonnais, the Sarrià Railway Company and as a sports columnist, he worked for two Swiss newspapers. 

He joined the local Swiss Evangelical Church and began playing football within the famous local Christian Protestant community in the district of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi. He also attended the Gimnasio Solé and helped publish a magazine, Los Deportes.

On 22 October 1899 Gamper placed an advert in Los Deportes declaring his wish to form a football club. A positive response resulted in a meeting at the Gimnasio Solé on 29 November and Football Club Barcelona was born. The founders included a collection of Swiss, British, Catalan and Spanish enthusiasts.

More information: Official FC Barcelona Web Site

It is not known, if Gamper chose the legendary club colours, blaugrana, after FC Basel or FC Excelsior Zürich. However, the other Swiss teams Gamper played for, and Merchant Taylors' School in Crosby, Merseyside have all been credited and/or claimed to be the inspiration. Although Gamper was the driving force behind the club, initially he chose only to be a board member and club captain. He was still only 22 and wanted to concentrate on playing the game he loved. He played 48 games for FC Barcelona between 1899 and 1903, scoring over 100 goals. His team mates included Arthur Witty. 

Joan Gamper with his footballers

In 1900-01 he was a member of the FC Barcelona team that won the clubs first trophy, the Copa Macaya. This competition is now recognised as the first Catalan championship. 

In 1902 he played in the very first Copa del Rey final. Barça lost 2-1 to Club Vizcaya.

In 1908 Joan Gamper became president of FC Barcelona for the first time. Gamper took over the presidency as the club was on the verge of folding. Several of the club's better players had retired and had not been replaced. This soon began to affect the club's performances both on and off the field. 

The club had not won anything since the Campionat de Catalunya of 1905 and its finances suffered as a result. He was subsequently club president on five separate occasions (1908-09, 1910-13, 1917-19, 1921-23 and 1924-25) and spent 25 years at the helm. One of his main achievements was to help Barça acquire their own stadium. 

More information: Outside of the boot

Until 1909 the team played at various grounds, none of them owned by the club. Gamper raised funds from local businesses and on 14 March 1909, they moved into the Carrer Indústria, a stadium with a capacity of 6,000. He also launched a campaign to recruit more club members and by 1922 the club had over 10,000. This led to the club moving again, this time to Les Corts. This stadium had an initial capacity of 20,000, later expanded to an impressive 60,000.

Joan Gamper with Paulino Alcántara

Gamper also recruited the legendary player Paulino Alcántara, the club's second all-time top-scorer, and in 1917 appointed Jack Greenwell as manager. This saw the club's fortunes begin to improve on the field. During the Gamper era FC Barcelona won eleven Championat de Catalunya, six Copa del Rey and four Coupe de Pyrenées and enjoyed its first golden age. As well as Alcántara the Barça team under Greenwell also included Sagibarba, Ricardo Zamora, Josep Samitier, Félix Sesúmaga and Franz Platko.

His final presidency ended in controversial circumstances and personal tragedy. On 24 June 1925, FC Barcelona fans jeered the Spanish national anthem and then applauded God Save the Queen performed by a visiting British Royal Marine band. The dictatorship of Primo de Rivera accused Gamper of promoting Catalan nationalism. Les Corts was closed for six months. Gamper committed suicide after a period of depression brought on by personal and money problems and was laid to rest on the Cemetery of Montjuïc.

More information: Huffington Post

In 1966 the FC Barcelona president, Enric Llaudet, created the Joan Gamper Trophy in his honour. This is a pre-season tournament featuring international teams as guests and is traditionally used by the club to unveil the team for the forthcoming season. 

Barça's stadium was closed by dictatorship

The club also permanently retired his club membership number and the city named a street, Carrer de Joan Gamper in Les Corts district, after him. In 2016 also in Zurich a small street in a central location of the city already named Gamperstrasse has been dedicated to him.

In 2002 FC Barcelona marked the 125th anniversary of his birth. Perhaps this and the fact that the club developed into a polideportivo, the very personification of Gamper, is the most fitting tribute to this all-round sportsman. 

Today Barcelona is more than just a football club. It promotes amateur track and field sports and has rugby union and cycling teams. All of these were sports played by Gamper. Barça also has professional basketball, handball and roller hockey teams as well as amateur indoor football, women's football, volleyball, baseball and field hockey teams. Over the years they have even had an ice hockey team. 

More information: Official FC Barcelona Web Site

Under the shield, the heart beats.

Joan Gamper

ENJOYING F.C.BARCELONA AT JOAN GAMPER TROPHY

Today, The Grandma has enjoyed FC Barcelona Women Joan Gamper Trophy at Estadi Johan Cruyff in Sant Joan Despí.

The Joan Gamper Trophy, in Catalan Trofeu Joan Gamper, is an annual association football exhibition match held in August, before the start of Barcelona's La Liga season, where top division clubs from the world compete against them.

The competition is hosted by FC Barcelona at the Camp Nou stadium (men) and at Johan Cruyff stadium (women) and is named in honour of Joan Gamper, a founding member, player, and later president of the club. The competition was inaugurated in 1966 by Enric Llaudet, one of Gamper's successors as club president.

The trophy itself is an 800-gram silver cup with five micrometres of gold finishing, on top of a 10-kilogram marble plinth base.

Initially, four teams participated in the competition, which featured two semi-finals, a third-place play-off, and a final.

For the first competition in 1966 (men), Barcelona were joined by Belgium's Anderlecht, France's Nantes, and Germany's 1. FC Köln. Barcelona beat the German team 3-1 in the final. Köln subsequently won the competition in 1978 and 1981 and were runners-up in 1979, making them the only team, other than the hosts, to win the competition more than once.

More information: FCBarcelona

Once again, Barça Women start their season with the Joan Gamper Trophy at the team's base, the Estadi Johan Cruyff. Just a few days before leaving to tour the USA, the blaugranes will be reunited with their fans for the first home game against AC Milan on Friday August 23. 

The event will include the team's presentation to the fans plus a wide range of different fun activities and musicians performing live to suit everyone's tastes.

Fans will be able to enjoy different games and surprises, which will include a DJ set, games in the stands and on the big screen relating to the women's first team and the Club's 125th anniversary, a shower of shirts for those in attendance, as well as Estrella Damm games both pre-match and at half time, with the usual hosts whipping up the atmosphere. Ginestà are the guest musical duo, and they will sing the Barça anthem pre-match, while performing one of their own songs at half time.

One of the most eagerly waited moments of the event will undoubtedly be the presentation of the squad and the coaching staff. As usual, the players will take to the pitch one by one to greet the fans, including the new coach and the recent signings.

Something new for this edition of the Gamper game will be the jersey the players wear against AC Milan, as the men's first team did at the Gamper on August 8. Given the Club will celebrate its 125th anniversary this year, the blaugranes' kit will have a specially created logo on the right sleeve to commemorate the year the Club was founded, which was presented a few months ago at an event with president Joan Laporta and the 125th anniversary commissioner, David Carabén. This won't be the only time this logo will appear as it will be used on other items throughout the season as the 125th anniversary celebrations continue.

The first three editions of the women's Gamper game took place at Estadi Johan Cruyff and this edition will be the fourth. The trophy remained at home for the previous three editions.

More information: Hans Max Gamper-Haessig, More Than A Founder

La capitana és la primera que es compromet
als objectius que es fixen internament,
han de donar exemple per reforçar-ho.

The captain is the first to make a commitment
to the objectives that are set internally,
they have to lead by example to reinforce that.

Alèxia Putellas

JOSEP M. JUJOL & SANT JOAN DESPÍ, SHARING HISTORY

Musings of The Grandma...

There are architects whose work belongs to museums, guidebooks and histories of art. And there are architects whose work becomes inseparable from a place. Josep Maria Jujol i Gibert belongs to both categories.

His name inevitably appears beside that of Antoni Gaudí. His imagination can be found in some of the most celebrated creations of Catalan Modernisme. At Park Güell, Casa Batlló and La Pedrera, Jujol's extraordinary ability with colour, materials, surfaces and decorative invention contributed to works that millions of people now associate almost instinctively with Gaudí.

But perhaps there is another way to understand Jujol. Leave Barcelona. Follow the Llobregat. And stop at Sant Joan Despí. Here, Jujol was not simply the collaborator of a famous architect. Here, he became part of a town. 

It is difficult to imagine Sant Joan Despí at the beginning of the twentieth century if we only know the town today. Modern Sant Joan Despí belongs completely to the Barcelona metropolitan landscape. Roads, railway lines, apartment blocks, industries and services connect it to the enormous urban organism surrounding the Catalan capital. 

It is known throughout Catalunya as the home of TV3, the Catalan public television broadcaster. Football supporters associate it with FC Barcelona's Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper.

For decades, industry has also formed part of its identity. But the Sant Joan Despí that Jujol encountered was very different. It was still essentially agricultural. Fields surrounded a relatively small settlement. Wheat, maize, vegetables, hemp and vines had traditionally been cultivated there. At the beginning of the twentieth century, industry was still remarkably limited. This was the landscape into which Jujol introduced his imagination. And that matters. Because Jujol did not impose an urban architecture upon a rural world. He listened to the place. 

Jujol's relationship with Sant Joan Despí began in 1913 with the Torre de la Creu, commissioned by Josefa Romeu. Imagine its appearance then. Not surrounded by the dense metropolitan city we know today, but emerging within an agricultural landscape. Five intersecting cylinders. Curved roofs. Colour. Ceramic surfaces. An architecture apparently determined to ignore the straight line whenever imagination offered a more interesting alternative. The building must have seemed extraordinary. But Jujol did not treat rural Sant Joan Despí as an empty stage upon which an architect could display his genius.

The relationship gradually became deeper. He met local families. He received further commissions. He worked with local craftsmen. He transformed existing buildings. He designed new ones. Eventually, he worked for the Town Council itself. During the last decades of his life, Sant Joan Despí was no longer simply somewhere Jujol happened to have projects. It was one of his places. 

Perhaps nothing explains Jujol's relationship with Sant Joan Despí better than Can Negre. The building already existed. It was a seventeenth-century farmhouse. Another architect might have regarded the old structure as an obstacle to modernity. Jujol did something much more interesting. He transformed it. He preserved and reinvented. Traditional materials and techniques coexist with extraordinary forms, religious symbolism, colour, wrought iron, plaster, wood, ceramics and that astonishing carriage-shaped gallery dominating the façade. The old farmhouse does not disappear beneath Modernisme. It becomes something else while remaining recognisable. And perhaps this tells us something important about Jujol himself. His creativity did not necessarily require a blank page. He could begin with what was already there. A wall. A farmhouse. A discarded material. A landscape. An imperfection. For Jujol, limitations were frequently invitations to imagine. 

By the 1920s, Jujol's relationship with Sant Joan Despí had become institutional as well as artistic. He was producing reports for the Town Council and in 1926 became its auxiliary municipal architect. His association with the municipality would continue through the final decades of his life. This changes the way we should look at his legacy there. Jujol was not merely designing beautiful houses for individual clients. He was thinking about the town itself. Streets. Connections. Buildings. Public space. Growth. How should an agricultural village become something larger without losing the logic of its landscape? That question became particularly visible in one fascinating project.

During the first decades of the twentieth century, landowners began considering the development of the Samontà area, above the railway. Pere Negre entrusted Jujol with an urbanisation project. For years, Jujol studied the land. His proposals attempted to follow existing paths, property boundaries and natural changes in elevation rather than simply drawing an abstract geometric grid over the countryside. The plan was formally presented in 1926. It was never built. And here history becomes fascinating. Because the land did not remain agricultural forever. The future arrived -simply not the future Jujol had drawn. 

After the middle of the twentieth century, Sant Joan Despí began changing dramatically. The 1953 regional plan designated land for industrial development outside Barcelona. The area that Jujol had once imagined being urbanised would eventually form part of the Fontsanta industrial zone.

Gallina Blanca was among the first major companies to establish itself there. Others followed. Factories replaced fields. Employment attracted new inhabitants, including many families arriving from other parts of the State. New neighbourhoods developed to accommodate a rapidly increasing population. Sant Joan Despí was becoming industrial. The transformation was not unique. Similar processes were changing the entire Baix Llobregat and much of metropolitan Barcelona. Agricultural land became industrial land. Villages became towns. Paths became streets. Farmhouses found themselves surrounded by apartment buildings. A landscape that had developed over centuries changed within a few decades. And Jujol's buildings remained. 

This is perhaps where Jujol's importance to Sant Joan Despí becomes greater than architecture itself. His buildings became witnesses. The Torre de la Creu remembers a Sant Joan Despí in which an eccentric summer house could suddenly appear beside fields. Can Negre remembers the agricultural world of the Catalan masia while simultaneously transforming it into something fantastical.

Casa Rovira still carries decoration inspired by fields and fruit. Even Jujol's unrealised urban plans preserve evidence of a moment when the future of Sant Joan Despí had not yet been decided. Buildings can do this. They store time. Not metaphorically, but physically. A wall may survive after the field beside it disappears. A farmhouse may remain after agriculture ceases to define the local economy. An architect may die while the town continues changing around his work. Architecture becomes a form of memory that cannot easily be erased. The transformation continued.

The industrial town gradually became part of the contemporary metropolitan city. Today, someone hearing the name Sant Joan Despí may think of very different things. TV3. The Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper. FC Barcelona players arriving for training. The Fontsanta industrial area. The railway. The tram. Schools, hospitals, businesses and residential neighbourhoods. Almost none of these things belongs to Jujol's Sant Joan Despí. And yet Jujol still belongs to theirs. That is the fascinating paradox. The town changed almost beyond recognition, but the architect became one of the threads connecting its different identities. Agricultural Sant Joan Despí. Modernista Sant Joan Despí. Industrial Sant Joan Despí. Metropolitan Sant Joan Despí. They coexist in the same streets. 

There is another reason Sant Joan Despí matters. It allows us to see Jujol without constantly looking over his shoulder for Gaudí. This is important. Jujol's collaborations with Gaudí were extraordinary. His contribution to works such as Park Güell, Casa Batlló and La Pedrera forms an essential part of his legacy. But collaboration can sometimes cast a long shadow. The enormous international fame of Gaudí has inevitably caused many visitors to encounter Jujol first as Gaudí's collaborator. Sant Joan Despí reverses the relationship. Here we encounter Jujol as Jujol. Architect. Designer. Painter. Craftsman. Urban planner. Municipal architect. Neighbour. Here his imagination does not occupy one corner of somebody else's masterpiece. It occupies the town. 

There is something else particularly appropriate about Jujol working in an agricultural town. He possessed an extraordinary ability to see possibilities in modest things. Fragments. Ceramics. Iron. Wood. Plaster. Objects and materials that other people might overlook. Today we might instinctively associate this with recycling, but Jujol's attitude was more profound than simply reusing materials. He appeared capable of recognising beauty before beauty was obvious. A broken piece was not necessarily waste. An irregularity did not necessarily require correction. An old building did not necessarily need demolition. A humble material did not need to pretend to be expensive. Transformation could begin with what already existed. Perhaps this is why his architecture feels so organic. It does not merely imitate nature. It behaves a little like nature. It adapts. It incorporates. It transforms. 

Cities often preserve individual monuments while destroying the relationship that once existed between those monuments and their surroundings. Sant Joan Despí offers something more interesting. Jujol has become part of its identity.

Can Negre is now a cultural centre devoted to his legacy. His works form an architectural route through the town. His name remains attached not simply to individual buildings but to the cultural understanding of Sant Joan Despí itself. The agricultural village disappeared. The industrial town changed. The metropolitan city continues evolving. But Jujol remains. And perhaps that is the most beautiful way to understand the relationship between an architect and a place. Not as ownership. Not even as influence. But as conversation. Jujol listened to Sant Joan Despí when it was still surrounded by fields. Sant Joan Despí gave him somewhere to experiment, build, transform and imagine. Then history transformed the town in ways neither could have predicted. Factories arrived. Population grew. Fields disappeared. Television studios appeared. Footballers began training nearby. And through all those changes, Jujol's strange curves, colours, inscriptions, ironwork and fragments remained.

Today, walking through Sant Joan Despí means walking through several towns simultaneously. The agricultural town. The Modernista town. The industrial town. The metropolitan town. And somewhere between them all stands Josep Maria Jujol. Not simply as the architect who built in Sant Joan Despí. But as the architect whom Sant Joan Despí made part of itself.

More information: Jujol 140

There is another reason why Sant Joan Despí has always been much more than a place on a map to The Grandma. Part of her family lives there. Her uncle worked at Gallina Blanca, one of those factories that transformed the old agricultural town into an industrial one. He and her father even played football for the company's team.

And football would eventually become part of her own Sant Joan Despí, too. As a teenager, she played for La Llevantina, later, the club also known as Llevant-Les Planes. At a time when being a girl who wanted to play football was not always easy, she found there something extraordinarily simple that should never have been extraordinary at all: the possibility of playing.

She played in a mixed team. She was not asking to make history. She was not trying to prove anything. She was an adolescent who loved football and wanted to enjoy it under the same conditions as her teammates. Eventually, the team became boys-only. And that was the end of her football career. Life continued. But so did football.

La Llevantina eventually became Llevant-Les Planes, a club with an important place in the history of Catalan women's football. The landscape changed too. FC Barcelona built its Ciutat Esportiva in Sant Joan Despí, and beside it came the Johan Cruyff Stadium.

More than thirty years after playing on those dusty pitches, she found herself returning to almost the same territory to watch professional women's football. Sometimes history has a strange sense of geography. The girl who had once been allowed to play only until the team became exclusively male could now sit in a stadium built specifically to host, among others, one of the greatest women's football teams in the world. She would love to say that the circle has been completed. It has not.

Women's football has changed enormously, but equality is not a destination we have completely reached. There is still work to do. And perhaps that makes the journey even more meaningful. Whenever she return to Sant Joan Despí, she still remember those old dirt football pitches. She fell and left part of her knees behind. She arrived home covered in dust, scratches and what she proudly considered her battle wounds. And she was happy. Terribly happy.

Because sometimes the places that remain most deeply inside us are not the beautiful ones. They are the places where we were allowed to become ourselves. Jujol's Sant Joan Despí was a landscape of fields. Her uncle's was a landscape of factories. Hers was a landscape of dirt football pitches. Today's Sant Joan Despí has television studios, the Ciutat Esportiva and the Johan Cruyff Stadium. Different landscapes. Different generations. Different stories. And yet something remains. Jujol's buildings remain. Memory remains. And, wonderfully, so do the friends with whom she shared those football pitches all those years ago.

Perhaps places are a little like people. They change enormously and somehow remain themselves.

Today marks 147 years since the birth of Josep Maria Jujol i Gibert. Let us enjoy his legacy.

More information: The Guardian

L'obra de Jujol és contramonumental; 

és el dia a dia convertit en extraordinari.

Jujol's work is anti-monumental; 

it is everyday life transformed into something extraordinary.

Josep Llinàs

FUTBOL CLUB BARCELONA, 125 YEARS OF GREAT HISTORY

On a day like today in 1899, Futbol Club Barcelona was founded.

 

The Grandma and Claire Fontaine live in Barcelona and they are two eternal fans of this club since they were born. They want to celebrate this great 125 anniversary. 

Long live Futbol Club Barcelona!

Visca el Barça i Visca Catalunya!

Futbol Club Barcelona, known simply as Barcelona and colloquially as Barça, is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia.

Founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Catalan footballers led by Joan Gamper, the club has become a symbol of Catalan culture and Catalanism, hence the motto Més que un club, More than a club. The official Barcelona anthem is the Cant del Barça, written by Jaume Picas and Josep Maria Espinàs.

Barcelona is one of the most widely supported teams in the world, and the club has one of the largest social media following in the world among sports teams. Barcelona players have won a record number of Ballon d'Or awards, with recipients including Johan Cruyff, as well as a record number of FIFA World Player of the Year awards.

Barcelona is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from the top division since its inception in 1929, along with Athletic Bilbao and Real Madrid. 

In 2009, Barcelona became the first club to win the continental treble consisting of La Liga, Copa del Rey, and the UEFA Champions League, and also became the first football club to win six out of six competitions in a single year, by also winning the Spanish Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup. 

In 2011, the club became European champions again and won five trophies. This Barcelona team, which won 14 trophies in just 4 years under Pep Guardiola, is considered by some in the sport to be the greatest team of all time. By winning their fifth Champions League trophy on 6 June 2015, Barcelona became the first European club in history to achieve the continental treble twice. It is also the highest paid sports team ever.

More information: Futbol Club Barcelona

On 22 October 1899, Hans Gamper placed an advertisement in Los Deportes declaring his wish to form a football club; a positive response resulted in a meeting at the Gimnasio Solé on 29 November. Eleven players attended -Walter Wild (the first director of the club), Lluís d'Ossó, Bartomeu Terradas, Otto Kunzle, Otto Maier, Enric Ducal, Pere Cabot, Carles Pujol, Josep Llobet, John Parsons, and William Parsons- and Foot-Ball Club Barcelona was born. Officially, Futbol Club Barcelona was founded on 29 November 1899 as Foot-Ball Club Barcelona.

FC Barcelona had a successful start in regional and national cups, competing in the Campionat de Catalunya and the Copa del Rey. In 1902, the club won its first trophy, the Copa Macaya. 

Hans Gamper

In 1908, Hans Gamper, now known as Joan Gamper, became club president in a desperate attempt to save Barcelona from extinction, finding the club struggling not just on the pitch, but also financially and socially, after not winning a competition since the Campionat de Catalunya in 1905. 

He said in a meeting, Barcelona cannot die and must not die. If there is nobody who is going to try, then I will assume the responsibility of running the club from now on." Club president on five separate occasions between 1908 and 1925, he spent 25 years in total at the helm. One of his main achievements was ensuring Barça acquire its own stadium and thus generate a stable income.

On 14 March 1909, the team moved into the Camp de la Indústria, a stadium with a capacity of 8,000. To celebrate their new surroundings, the club conducted a logo contest the following year. Carles Comamala won the contest, and his suggestion became the crest that the club still wears, with some minor changes, as of the present day.

With the new stadium, Barcelona participated in the inaugural version of the Pyrenees Cup, which, at the time, consisted of the best teams of Languedoc, Midi and Aquitaine, the Basque Country and Catalonia. The contest was the most prestigious in that era. From the inaugural year in 1910 to 1913, Barcelona won the competition four consecutive times.

More information: Hans Max Gamper-Haessig, More than a founder

During the same period, the club changed its official language from Castilian to Catalan and gradually evolved into an important symbol of Catalan identity. For many fans, participating in the club had less to do with the game itself and more with being a part of the club's collective identity.

Gamper simultaneously launched a campaign to recruit more club members, and by 1922, the club had more than 20,000, who helped finance a new stadium. The club then moved to the new Les Corts, which they inaugurated the same year. Les Corts had an initial capacity of 30,000, and in the 1940s it was expanded to 60,000.

The Stadium was closed as a reprisal

Gamper recruited Jack Greenwell as the first full-time manager in Barcelona's history. After this hiring, the club's fortunes began to improve on the field. During the Gamper-led era, Barcelona won eleven Campionats de Catalunya, six Copa del Rey and four Pyrenees Cups and enjoyed its first golden age.

On 14 June 1925, in a spontaneous reaction against Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, the crowd in the stadium jeered the Royal March. As a reprisal, the ground was closed for six months and Gamper was forced to relinquish the presidency of the club. This coincided with the transition to professional football, and, in 1926, the directors of Barcelona publicly claimed, for the first time, to operate a professional football club.

On 30 July 1930, Gamper committed suicide after a period of depression brought on by personal and financial problems.

Although they continued to have players of the standing of Josep Escolà, the club now entered a period of decline, in which political conflict overshadowed sports throughout society. Attendance at matches dropped as the citizens of Barcelona were occupied with discussing political matters. Although the team won the Campionat de Catalunya in 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936 and 1938, success at a national level, with the exception of the 1937 disputed title, evaded them.

A month after the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, several players from Barcelona enlisted in the ranks of those who fought against the military uprising, along with players from Athletic Bilbao.

Josep Sunyol

On 6 August, Falangist soldiers near Guadarrama murdered club president Josep Sunyol, a representative of the pro-independence political party. He was dubbed the martyr of barcelonisme, and his murder was a defining moment in the history of FC Barcelona and Catalan identity. 

In the summer of 1937, the squad was on tour in Mexico and the United States, where it was received as an ambassador of the Second Spanish Republic. The tour led to the financial security of the club, but also resulted in half of the team seeking asylum in Mexico and France, making it harder for the remaining team to contest for trophies.

On 16 March 1938, Barcelona came under aerial bombardment from the Italian Air Force, causing more than 3,000 deaths, with one of the bombs hitting the club's offices.

A few months later, Catalonia came under occupation and as a symbol of the undisciplined Catalanism, the club, now down to just 3,486 members, faced a number of restrictions. 

All signs of regional nationalism, including language, flag and other signs of separatism were banned throughout Spain. The Catalan flag was banned and the club were prohibited from using non-Spanish names. These measures forced the club to change its name to Club de Fútbol Barcelona and to remove the Catalan flag from its crest.

In 1943, Barcelona faced rivals Real Madrid in the semi-finals of Copa del Generalísimo, now the Copa del Rey. The first match at Les Corts was won by Barcelona 3–0. Real Madrid comfortably won the second leg, beating Barcelona 11–1. According to football writer Sid Lowe, There have been relatively few mentions of the game since and it is not a result that has been particularly celebrated in Madrid. Indeed, the 11–1 occupies a far more prominent place in Barcelona's history. This was the game that first formed the identification of Madrid as the team of the dictatorship and Barcelona as its victims. It has been alleged by local journalist Paco Aguilar that Barcelona's players were threatened by police in the changing room, though nothing was ever proven.

László Kubala

With Helenio Herrera as coach, a young Luis Suárez, the European Footballer of the Year in 1960, and two influential Hungarians recommended by László Kubala, Sándor Kocsis and Zoltán Czibor, the team won another national double in 1959 and a La Liga and Fairs Cup double in 1960. In 1961, they became the first club to beat Real Madrid in a European Cup play-off. However, they lost 2–3 to Benfica in the final.

The 1960s were less successful for the club, with Real Madrid monopolising La Liga. The completion of the Camp Nou, finished in 1957, meant the club had little money to spend on new players. The 1960s saw the emergence of Josep Maria Fusté and Carles Rexach, and the club won the Copa del Generalísimo in 1963 and the Fairs Cup in 1966. Barcelona restored some pride by beating Real Madrid 1–0 in the 1968 Copa del Generalísimo final at the Santiago Bernabéu in front of Francisco Franco, with coach Salvador Artigas, a former republican pilot in the Civil War.

With the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1974, the club changed its official name back to Futbol Club Barcelona and reverted the crest to its original design, including the original letters once again.

More information: ESPN

The 1973–74 season saw the arrival of Johan Cruyff. Already an established player with Ajax, Cruyff quickly won over the Barcelona fans when he told the European press that he chose Barcelona over Real Madrid because he could not play for a club associated with Francisco Franco. He further endeared himself when he named his son Jordi, after the local Catalan Saint George.

Next to champions like Juan Manuel Asensi, Carles Rexach and Hugo Sotil, he helped the club win the 1973–74 season for the first time since 1960, defeating Real Madrid 5–0 at the Santiago Bernabéu en route. He was crowned European Footballer of the Year in 1973 during his first season with Barcelona, his second Ballon d'Or win; he won his first while playing for Ajax in 1971. Cruyff received this prestigious award a third time, the first player to do so, in 1974, while he was still with Barcelona.

Johan Cruyff

In 1988, Johan Cruyff returned to the club, this time as manager and he assembled what would later be dubbed the Dream Team.

It was ten years after the inception of the youth programme, La Masia, when the young players began to graduate and play for their first team. One of the first graduates, who would later earn international acclaim, was future Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola. Under Cruyff's guidance, Barcelona won four consecutive La Liga titles from 1991 to 1994. They beat Sampdoria in both the 1989 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final and the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley, with a free kick goal from Dutch international Ronald Koeman. They also won a Copa del Rey in 1990, the European Super Cup in 1992 and three Supercopa de España trophies. With 11 trophies, Cruyff became the club's most successful manager at that point.

On the legacy of Cruyff's football philosophy and the passing style of play he introduced to the club, future coach of Barcelona Pep Guardiola would state, Cruyff built the cathedral, our job is to maintain and renovate it.

More information: Johan Cruyff Foundation

Barcelona B youth manager Pep Guardiola took became the new manager in 2007. Guardiola brought with him the now famous tiki-taka style of play he had been taught during his time in the Barcelona youth teams. Leo Messi has become the star of this new century.

Barça beat Athletic Bilbao 4–1 in the 2009 Copa del Rey Final, winning the competition for a record-breaking 25th time. A historic 2–6 victory against Real Madrid followed three days later and ensured that Barcelona became 2008–09 La Liga champions. Barça finished the season by beating Manchester United 2–0 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, with goals from Eto'o and Messi, to win their third Champions League title, and complete the first ever treble.

The team went on to win the 2009 Supercopa de España against Athletic Bilbao and the 2009 UEFA Super Cup against Shakhtar Donetsk, becoming the first European club to win both domestic and European Super Cups following a treble. In December 2009, Barcelona won the 2009 Club World Cup. Guardiola represents the new golden age of Barça.

Pep Guardiola & Leo Messi

The nickname culé for a Barcelona supporter is derived from the Catalan cul, in English arse, as the spectators at the first stadium, Camp de la Indústria, sat with their culs over the stand.

The club's original crest was a quartered diamond-shaped crest topped by the Crown of Aragon and the bat of Jaume I, King James, and surrounded by two branches, one of a laurel tree and the other a palm. The club shared Barcelona's coat of arms, as a demonstration of its identification with the city and a desire to be recognised as one.

In 1910, the club held a competition among its members to design a new crest. The winner was Carles Comamala, who at the time played for the club. Comamala's suggestion became the crest that the club wears today, with some minor variations. The crest consists of the St George Cross in the upper-left corner with the Catalan flag beside it, and the team colours at the bottom.

Several competing theories have been put forth for the blue and red design of the Barcelona shirt. The son of the first president, Arthur Witty, claimed it was the idea of his father as the colours were the same as the Merchant Taylor's School team. In Catalonia the common perception is that the colours were chosen by Joan Gamper and are those of his home team, FC Basel. The club's most frequently used change colours have been yellow and orange. An away kit featuring the red and yellow stripes of the flag of Catalonia has also been used many times.

More information: Messi

At Barcelona, I had the best players ever, 

and they helped me to be a successful manager. 

Pep Guardiola

FUTBOL CLUB BARCELONA, 126 YEARS OF GREAT HISTORY

On a day like today in 1899, Futbol Club Barcelona was founded. The Grandma and Claire Fontaine live in Barcelona and they are two eternal fans of this club since they were born. They want to celebrate this great 126 anniversary and today they have assisted to an amazing match between Futbol Club Barcelona and Deportivo Alavés.

Visca el Barça! 

Visca Catalunya!

Futbol Club Barcelona, known simply as Barcelona and colloquially as Barça, is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia.

Founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Catalan footballers led by Joan Gamper, the club has become a symbol of Catalan culture and Catalanism, hence the motto Més que un club, More than a club. The official Barcelona anthem is the Cant del Barça, written by Jaume Picas and Josep Maria Espinàs.

Barcelona is one of the most widely supported teams in the world, and the club has one of the largest social media following in the world among sports teams. Barcelona players have won a record number of Ballon d'Or awards, with recipients including Johan Cruyff, as well as a record number of FIFA World Player of the Year awards.

Barcelona is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from the top division since its inception in 1929, along with Athletic Bilbao and Real Madrid. 

In 2009, Barcelona became the first club to win the continental treble consisting of La Liga, Copa del Rey, and the UEFA Champions League, and also became the first football club to win six out of six competitions in a single year, by also winning the Spanish Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup. 

In 2011, the club became European champions again and won five trophies. This Barcelona team, which won 14 trophies in just 4 years under Pep Guardiola, is considered by some in the sport to be the greatest team of all time. By winning their fifth Champions League trophy on 6 June 2015, Barcelona became the first European club in history to achieve the continental treble twice. It is also the highest paid sports team ever.

More information: Futbol Club Barcelona

On 22 October 1899, Hans Gamper placed an advertisement in Los Deportes declaring his wish to form a football club; a positive response resulted in a meeting at the Gimnasio Solé on 29 November. Eleven players attended -Walter Wild (the first director of the club), Lluís d'Ossó, Bartomeu Terradas, Otto Kunzle, Otto Maier, Enric Ducal, Pere Cabot, Carles Pujol, Josep Llobet, John Parsons, and William Parsons- and Foot-Ball Club Barcelona was born. Officially, Futbol Club Barcelona was founded on 29 November 1899 as Foot-Ball Club Barcelona.

FC Barcelona had a successful start in regional and national cups, competing in the Campionat de Catalunya and the Copa del Rey. In 1902, the club won its first trophy, the Copa Macaya. 

In 1908, Hans Gamper, now known as Joan Gamper, became club president in a desperate attempt to save Barcelona from extinction, finding the club struggling not just on the pitch, but also financially and socially, after not winning a competition since the Campionat de Catalunya in 1905. 

He said in a meeting, Barcelona cannot die and must not die. If there is nobody who is going to try, then I will assume the responsibility of running the club from now on." Club president on five separate occasions between 1908 and 1925, he spent 25 years in total at the helm. One of his main achievements was ensuring Barça acquire its own stadium and thus generate a stable income.

On 14 March 1909, the team moved into the Camp de la Indústria, a stadium with a capacity of 8,000. To celebrate their new surroundings, the club conducted a logo contest the following year. Carles Comamala won the contest, and his suggestion became the crest that the club still wears, with some minor changes, as of the present day.

With the new stadium, Barcelona participated in the inaugural version of the Pyrenees Cup, which, at the time, consisted of the best teams of Languedoc, Midi and Aquitaine, the Basque Country and Catalonia. The contest was the most prestigious in that era. From the inaugural year in 1910 to 1913, Barcelona won the competition four consecutive times.

More information: Hans Max Gamper-Haessig, More than a founder

During the same period, the club changed its official language from Castilian to Catalan and gradually evolved into an important symbol of Catalan identity. For many fans, participating in the club had less to do with the game itself and more with being a part of the club's collective identity.

Gamper simultaneously launched a campaign to recruit more club members, and by 1922, the club had more than 20,000, who helped finance a new stadium. The club then moved to the new Les Corts, which they inaugurated the same year. Les Corts had an initial capacity of 30,000, and in the 1940s it was expanded to 60,000.

Gamper recruited Jack Greenwell as the first full-time manager in Barcelona's history. After this hiring, the club's fortunes began to improve on the field. During the Gamper-led era, Barcelona won eleven Campionats de Catalunya, six Copa del Rey and four Pyrenees Cups and enjoyed its first golden age.

On 14 June 1925, in a spontaneous reaction against Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, the crowd in the stadium jeered the Royal March. As a reprisal, the ground was closed for six months and Gamper was forced to relinquish the presidency of the club. This coincided with the transition to professional football, and, in 1926, the directors of Barcelona publicly claimed, for the first time, to operate a professional football club.

On 30 July 1930, Gamper committed suicide after a period of depression brought on by personal and financial problems.

Although they continued to have players of the standing of Josep Escolà, the club now entered a period of decline, in which political conflict overshadowed sports throughout society. Attendance at matches dropped as the citizens of Barcelona were occupied with discussing political matters. Although the team won the Campionat de Catalunya in 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936 and 1938, success at a national level, with the exception of the 1937 disputed title, evaded them.

A month after the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, several players from Barcelona enlisted in the ranks of those who fought against the military uprising, along with players from Athletic Bilbao.

On 6 August, Falangist soldiers near Guadarrama murdered club president Josep Sunyol, a representative of the pro-independence political party. He was dubbed the martyr of barcelonisme, and his murder was a defining moment in the history of FC Barcelona and Catalan identity. 

In the summer of 1937, the squad was on tour in Mexico and the United States, where it was received as an ambassador of the Second Spanish Republic. The tour led to the financial security of the club, but also resulted in half of the team seeking asylum in Mexico and France, making it harder for the remaining team to contest for trophies.

On 16 March 1938, Barcelona came under aerial bombardment from the Italian Air Force, causing more than 3,000 deaths, with one of the bombs hitting the club's offices.

A few months later, Catalonia came under occupation and as a symbol of the undisciplined Catalanism, the club, now down to just 3,486 members, faced a number of restrictions. 

All signs of regional nationalism, including language, flag and other signs of separatism were banned throughout Spain. The Catalan flag was banned and the club were prohibited from using non-Spanish names. These measures forced the club to change its name to Club de Fútbol Barcelona and to remove the Catalan flag from its crest.

In 1943, Barcelona faced rivals Real Madrid in the semi-finals of Copa del Generalísimo, now the Copa del Rey. The first match at Les Corts was won by Barcelona 3–0. Real Madrid comfortably won the second leg, beating Barcelona 11–1. According to football writer Sid Lowe, There have been relatively few mentions of the game since and it is not a result that has been particularly celebrated in Madrid. Indeed, the 11–1 occupies a far more prominent place in Barcelona's history. This was the game that first formed the identification of Madrid as the team of the dictatorship and Barcelona as its victims. It has been alleged by local journalist Paco Aguilar that Barcelona's players were threatened by police in the changing room, though nothing was ever proven.

With Helenio Herrera as coach, a young Luis Suárez, the European Footballer of the Year in 1960, and two influential Hungarians recommended by László Kubala, Sándor Kocsis and Zoltán Czibor, the team won another national double in 1959 and a La Liga and Fairs Cup double in 1960. 
 

In 1961, they became the first club to beat Real Madrid in a European Cup play-off. However, they lost 2–3 to Benfica in the final.

The 1960s were less successful for the club, with Real Madrid monopolising La Liga. The completion of the Camp Nou, finished in 1957, meant the club had little money to spend on new players. The 1960s saw the emergence of Josep Maria Fusté and Carles Rexach, and the club won the Copa del Generalísimo in 1963 and the Fairs Cup in 1966. Barcelona restored some pride by beating Real Madrid 1–0 in the 1968 Copa del Generalísimo final at the Santiago Bernabéu in front of Francisco Franco, with coach Salvador Artigas, a former republican pilot in the Civil War.

With the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1974, the club changed its official name back to Futbol Club Barcelona and reverted the crest to its original design, including the original letters once again.

More information: ESPN

The 1973–74 season saw the arrival of Johan Cruyff. Already an established player with Ajax, Cruyff quickly won over the Barcelona fans when he told the European press that he chose Barcelona over Real Madrid because he could not play for a club associated with Francisco Franco. He further endeared himself when he named his son Jordi, after the local Catalan Saint George.

Next to champions like Juan Manuel Asensi, Carles Rexach and Hugo Sotil, he helped the club win the 1973–74 season for the first time since 1960, defeating Real Madrid 5–0 at the Santiago Bernabéu en route. He was crowned European Footballer of the Year in 1973 during his first season with Barcelona, his second Ballon d'Or win; he won his first while playing for Ajax in 1971. Cruyff received this prestigious award a third time, the first player to do so, in 1974, while he was still with Barcelona.

In 1988, Johan Cruyff returned to the club, this time as manager and he assembled what would later be dubbed the Dream Team.

It was ten years after the inception of the youth programme, La Masia, when the young players began to graduate and play for their first team. One of the first graduates, who would later earn international acclaim, was future Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola. Under Cruyff's guidance, Barcelona won four consecutive La Liga titles from 1991 to 1994. They beat Sampdoria in both the 1989 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final and the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley, with a free kick goal from Dutch international Ronald Koeman. They also won a Copa del Rey in 1990, the European Super Cup in 1992 and three Supercopa de España trophies. With 11 trophies, Cruyff became the club's most successful manager at that point.

On the legacy of Cruyff's football philosophy and the passing style of play he introduced to the club, future coach of Barcelona Pep Guardiola would state, Cruyff built the cathedral, our job is to maintain and renovate it.

More information: Johan Cruyff Foundation

Barcelona B youth manager Pep Guardiola took became the new manager in 2007. Guardiola brought with him the now famous tiki-taka style of play he had been taught during his time in the Barcelona youth teams. Leo Messi has become the star of this new century.

Barça beat Athletic Bilbao 4–1 in the 2009 Copa del Rey Final, winning the competition for a record-breaking 25th time. A historic 2–6 victory against Real Madrid followed three days later and ensured that Barcelona became 2008–09 La Liga champions. Barça finished the season by beating Manchester United 2–0 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, with goals from Eto'o and Messi, to win their third Champions League title, and complete the first ever treble.

The team went on to win the 2009 Supercopa de España against Athletic Bilbao and the 2009 UEFA Super Cup against Shakhtar Donetsk, becoming the first European club to win both domestic and European Super Cups following a treble. In December 2009, Barcelona won the 2009 Club World Cup. Guardiola represents the new golden age of Barça.

The nickname culé for a Barcelona supporter is derived from the Catalan cul, in English arse, as the spectators at the first stadium, Camp de la Indústria, sat with their culs over the stand.

The club's original crest was a quartered diamond-shaped crest topped by the Crown of Aragon and the bat of Jaume I, King James, and surrounded by two branches, one of a laurel tree and the other a palm. The club shared Barcelona's coat of arms, as a demonstration of its identification with the city and a desire to be recognised as one.

In 1910, the club held a competition among its members to design a new crest. The winner was Carles Comamala, who at the time played for the club. Comamala's suggestion became the crest that the club wears today, with some minor variations. The crest consists of the St George Cross in the upper-left corner with the Catalan flag beside it, and the team colours at the bottom.

Several competing theories have been put forth for the blue and red design of the Barcelona shirt. The son of the first president, Arthur Witty, claimed it was the idea of his father as the colours were the same as the Merchant Taylor's School team. In Catalonia the common perception is that the colours were chosen by Joan Gamper and are those of his home team, FC Basel. The club's most frequently used change colours have been yellow and orange. An away kit featuring the red and yellow stripes of the flag of Catalonia has also been used many times.

 

More information: Messi 

 

Futbol Club Barcelona Femení, commonly referred to as Barça Femení or simply Barça, is a Catalan professional women's football team based in Barcelona. 

 

It is the women's football section of FC Barcelona and competes in the Liga F, playing home games at the Johan Cruyff Stadium in Sant Joan Despí, and occasionally at the Camp Nou or Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys.

The club was formed in 1970 with some financial and logistical support from FC Barcelona, but without being an official section. 

 

In its inaugural season it competed in matches against other Catalan teams; it was originally known as Selecció Ciutat de Barcelona before taking the name Penya Femenina Barcelonista in 1971. 

 

Shortly after women's football was officially recognised, the team became known as Club Femení Barcelona in 1983 until 2002, when it officially became a section of FC Barcelona and took the official name Futbol Club Barcelona.  

Since the club's professionalisation in 2015, FC Barcelona has cemented itself as European dominant women's football team, becoming the league's most successful team in the UEFA Women's Champions League. It won the Champions League in 2021, 2023 and 2024.

 

More information: UEFA WCL

At Barcelona, I had the best players ever, 

and they helped me to be a successful manager. 

Pep Guardiola