Futbol Club Barcelona was founded in 1899 by a group of young footballers led by Hans Gamper. It’s best known as Barcelona or just Barça, the nickname comes from the mix of the Barcelona (pronounced Barsalona in catalán) and the nickname given to the supporters of the club: ‘culés’.
As a matter of fact, the name of the club has the word ‘Futbol’ without aacute because in catalán you don’t accentuate that word (in opposition to spanish were you would write Fútbol).
The beginnings
Started as a soccer club, other sports soon joined the pool of options of the club. As of 2006 the club has professional teams in: basketball, handball, roller hockey and futsal. Of course soccer is still the most representative part of the club, 75% of the budget is used in this discipline.
In 1928 La Liga was founded being Barça one of the founders, since then Barça has always been in Primera División.
Barça has won the last two seasons of La Liga, this year FCB also won The Champion’s League in an almost heart killing Finale.
FCB was founded November 29 of 1899, Hans Gamper published a Nota de Sport in the local diary Los Deportes announcing his intention to form a club and inviting others to join him.
After the first decade, the club had already some titles on the trophy room: a Copa de España and a Copa de los Pirineos.
At early ’10s, more and more fans became members of the club, at that time FCB had 3000 members. This was the time when the term ‘culés’ became popular among people.
The club also won 2 Copas de España and 3 Copas de los Pirineos.
The golden age
People like to say that the ’20s was the golden age of the club, the number of members went from 3000 culés to 11000. Also in 1926 the first stadium of the club, Les Corts, was opened to the public allowing at most 30000 fans.
In the sporting area, 4 Copas de España and in 1929 the first Liga Española in the history.
In the ’30s the club was in serious trouble, Hans Gamper died, later the Segunda República made a lot of members leave the club. It went even worse when the Guerra Civil Española started. After this tragic period the club had no more than 2500 members.
The franquismo
Of course, the blaugrana spirit came over all this problems and in the ’40s the club started to recover. Sadly the franquistas took over the club and until 1953 they directly named the president and vanished every single piece of catalán or english influence.
Not everything was bad news, even with the problems and franquismo in the club, FCB finished this decade with around 25000 members.
But future wasn’t so bright…
Continues in the next post…
barcelona barca history historia cules club futbol españa spain soccer
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