FC Barcelona - More Than A ClubThe Football Club Barcelona Story
Cosmopolitan RootsOn 22nd October 1899, Hans Gamper, a young Swiss businessman, placed an ad in a Barcelona sports paper calling for people interested in forming a club to practice the new game of football.
Rival Barcelona clubs Català FC and Español were named precisely to distinguish themselves from the foreigners and disputed FC Barcelona's right to represent the city and later the whole of Catalonia. But Hans Gamper's identification with the club, the city and Catalonia was complete - he changed his name to Joan and any question as to where Barça's loyalties lay were soon in no doubt. Under The First DictatorshipBy the 1920s, Barça had moved to its first decent ground - Les Corts - and was firmly established as one of the top clubs in Spain and Catalonia's representative in sport.This became clear during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-29) when the Catalan language was made illegal for the first time. In June 1925 an English ship docked at the Port of Barcelona, and the ship's boasted brass band was invited to play at Les Corts. Ignorant of where they were and the current atmosphere of cultural oppression, the band launched straight into the Spanish National Anthem. The assembled crowd began booing and jeering and arrests were made. The dictator closed Les Corts and banned FC Barcelona from playing competitive football for six months. Almost at the point of bankruptcy, Barça was saved by donations from the fans. Barça under FrancoFranco's first victim fell at the start of the Spanish Civil War, when Barcelona president Josep Sunyol was shot by a group of fascist soldiers whilst visiting Southern Spain on club business and in the final days of the war Barça's offices were bombed.Once in power Franco treated Barça in the same way as the other democrats that had stood against him for so long. Foreign words were made illegal so Football Club Barcelona became Club de Fútbol Barcelona and the Catalan flag was replaced by the Spanish one on the club crest. He also imposed one of his henchmen - Enrique Piñeyro - as Barcelona president, but the right-wing aristocrat soon found himself standing up against the regime. Things came to head in a cup match in 1942 when Barça played Real Madrid in Chamartín. Barça had won the first leg 3-nil but once in Madrid, they were intimidated by rival fans and a member of Franco's security services visited the team in the dressing room and warned the players that taking the ball into Real Madrid's half would be considered unpatriotic by the regime. Real Madrid won the game by eleven goals to one and Barça were fined 25,000 pesetas for provoking crowd trouble and then fined again for complaining about the first fine. Piñeyro subsequently resigned and refused to continue as a government lackey. Only Five CupsThe fifties were a moment in the club's history when, had it not been for the regime, FC Barcelona could easily have established itself as the greatest club in history.
As soon as Kubala was able to play, success came quickly and in that first season the Barça side, which became known as 'the team of the five cups', won the Liga-Cup double along with the Latin Cup, the Eva Duarte Cup and the Martin Rossi trophy. Despite a bout of tuberculosis, Kubala helped Barcelona win the Liga and the Copa del Generalísimo again the following year. At the club's centenary in 1999, Kubala was voted the greatest Barça player of all time, which as Cruyff, Maradona and Ronaldo were amongst his rivals is quite some accolade. However, the success of that mighty Barça was truncated when the club tried to sign Argentinian star, Alfredo di Stéfano. The regime made things impossible for Barcelona because foreign players were still officially banned and Di Stéfano ended up signing for Real Madrid to whom the same restrictions didn't apply. Di Stéfano's Real Madrid went on to win the European Cup five consecutive times between 1956 and 1960 whilst Barça entered a period of decline, which was to last until the seventies. The Transition to DemocracyAlthough brief success returned to Nou Camp in 1974 - when a Barça side led by Johan Cruyff won La Liga - it wasn't until after the death of Franco in 1975 that FC Barcelona could begin to repair the damage done.With the return of democracy in 1978, FC Barcelona was finally freed from government control and could return to its originally premise of being 'a private non-profit making association owned and controlled by its members.' Sporting successes soon followed with a European Cup Winners Cup in 1979, the signing of Maradona in 1982, a Liga title in 1985 and a European Cup runners-up medal the following season, but it wasn't until the nineties that everything the club had strived for through the dark years finally bore fruit. The Dream TeamIn 1988, Cruyff returned to Barcelona but this time as manager and after a faulty first season began to construct a team that would go down in history not only for its successes but also for the glorious football it played on the pitch.
But perhaps the culminating moment of Barça's history came in the European Cup final in 1992. Barcelona versus Sampdoria at Wembley. 0-0 after full-time. Minute 112. Barça get a free kick on the edge of Sampdoria's box. Koeman steps up and kicks. GOAL! FC Barcelona won their first Champions League on May 20. Just a few weeks before the city of Barcelona was to host the most successful Olympic Games of all time, which finally put the Catalan capital on the map. FC Barcelona showed it was More Than A Club by providing the opening ceremony to the city's moment of glory. A Hard Act to FollowModerate success followed under Bobby Robson and Louis Van Gaal but for fans who had swooned to the Dream Team things were not the same.In 2003 Frank Rijkaard took over the reins and signed Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto'o and Barça looked set for another lengthy period of success. But only two Ligas and a single European Cup didn't quite live up to expectations and the following the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons - in which Barça
were beaten in the Liga by a very poor Real Madrid - there was an almost complete shake-up of players, coaching staff and Board of Directors.
The Dawning of a New EraThe 2008-09 season marked the start of a new era at FC Barcelona.Ex-player Pep Guardiola moved up from the Barça B team to take on his first top-level coaching job.
Pep's Barça went down in the annals by winning the treble - La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League - for the first time in Spanish football history. The backbone of the 2008-09 side remains the same for 2009-10, so there's no reason why FC Barcelona shouldn't continue being much More Than A Club over the next few seasons.
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