FC Barcelona: More than a Club (World Soccer Legends) - Hardcover

Illugi Jökulsson is a journalist, editor, and author based in Iceland.

THE BIRTH OF BARCA

Eleven men turned up at the meeting Joan Gamper called in October 1899 and they became the founding members of Futbol Club Barcelona. Gamper himself, a passionate striker, played on the team the first four years and scored over 100 goals in 48 games! He and his teammates were obviously a force to be reckoned with, and they won the first trophy for the club in 1902. That was in the Copa Macaya tournament, which would later become the Championship of Catalonia and finally the Copa Catalunya. So even in its early days the club was already one of the strongest in Spain.

Yet there was trouble these first years. For a while the club was verging on bankruptcy until the accountant Gamper took over the books, as well as scoring goals! He got the club back on track. Barcelona won several trophies, and in 1910 it won the Copa del Rey (the Spanish Cup) for the first time.

It was around this time that the club took up Catalan instead of Castilian as its official language. The club gradually became a symbol of Catalan identity and the life and soul of the Catalan struggle for self-determination.

The Spanish league La Liga was founded in 1929. Barcelona had already won the Copa del Rey eight times, and now added the first Liga title to its collection of silverware. In second place was a club that was fast becoming Barcelona’s favorite rival” Real Madrid.

The next fifteen years were tough on Barca. For several seasons, the club had trouble landing any trophies, and from 1936 and 1939 Spain was ravaged by a civil war that ended with the dictator General Francisco Franco seizing power. Franco was opposed to all expressions of Catalan self-governance, and was therefore against the main symbol of Catalan identity FC Barcelona. Slowly but surely, however, the club regained its former glory, and in 1945 Barcelona was once again crowned champion.