FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona, founded in 1899 by a group of young foreigners living in Barcelona, was the result of the increasing popularity of football, and other British sports, across Europe. These origins have conferred upon the Club its intercultural identity, multi-sport focus and its deeply-rooted allegiance to Barcelona and Catalonia.
The foundation of the Club coincided with a time when people were becoming interested in playing sport in Catalonia; this social context and Catalonia’s idiosyncratic culture led to the creation of a new model of modern leisure.

Joan Gamper, the Club’s founder, was the inspiration and driving force behind the Club’s first 25 years. His commitment to FC Barcelona went far beyond his role as player, director and president.

During his free time, he played football with a group of friends in Bonanova.
In October 1899, Gamper placed an advert in the Los Deportes magazine to find players interested in forming a football team.
On 29 November, Gamper and eleven other men (Otto Kunzle from Switzerland; Walter Wild, John and William Parsons from England; Otto Maier from Germany; and Lluís d’Ossó, Bartomeu Terradas, Enric Ducal, Pere Cabot, Carles Pujol and Josep Llobet from Catalonia) came together to form an association that paid tribute to the city’s name and coat of arms: Futbol Club Barcelona.

Gamper aimed to create an organisation that was open to everyone, regardless of their origin. He envisaged a club that served as a means of social integration, in which everyone could speak their mind, and he created a democratic society that was freely governed by its members. As a sign of his gratitude to Catalonia, the country that had welcomed him, Gamper imbued FC Barcelona with the essence that has come to define it ever since: its commitment to Catalan identity.

Catalan identity, democracy, multiple sports and universality: today, Gamper’s original values continue to give Barça meaning.

The FC Barcelona stamp at that time featured this coat of arms.

In 1910, the board decided that the Club needed its own coat of arms and organised a competition to find a new design.

At the beginning, half the shirt was blue and the other claret, the sleeves were opposite colours and the shorts were white. One of the many theories explaining the origin of the kit colours — blue and claret — is that Gamper used the same colours as the Basel team, where he had played before coming to Catalonia.

Their difficulty in finding permanent grounds was due to economic instability and the lack of large open-air spaces at a time when the city was undergoing urban expansion.
1899-1900 The former cycle track grounds at Bonanova (today, Turó Park)
1900-1901 The Hotel Casanovas grounds (today, Hospital de Sant Pau)
1901-1905 Carretera d’Horta grounds
1905-1909 Carrer de Muntaner grounds

The Copa Macaya was the precursor to the Catalan Football Championship. It was begun in 1900 by Alfons Macaya, president of Hispania AC, when he announced his intention to organise a competition between Catalan teams.

The cup is an outstanding work of modernist art.

 --conclusion--

…  Gamper, the founder, conceived a sports club in Barcelona, with assistance from Catalans and foreigners   ...   Hans Gamper (Winterthur, Switzerland, 1877 – Barcelona, 1930) came to Barcelona in 1898 for professional reasons  ...   Gamper was a sports lover – a former athlete, cyclist, football and rugby player – who saw sport as a means of exalting the human spirit  ...  At first, 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 and the same  ...  The FC Barcelona shirts have always been blue and claret  ...  During a period of less than ten years, from 1899 to 1908, FC Barcelona used four different locations for its grounds  ...  In 1902, FC Barcelona won the first official title in its history  …

source: www.fcbarcelona.com

The Legends of Barca

 #1 Joan Gamper

 Founder of FC Barcelona on the 29th of November 1899 and five times president of the club between 1908 and 1925

#2 Carles Comamala

Carles Comamala (Madrid, 1887 – Barcelona, 1976) was a personal friend of Gamper’s and the real successor to the Swiss player in the Barça attack when the club founder retired in 1903. Comamala was an extraordinarily prolific goalscorer

#3 Paulino Alcántara

Paulino Alcántara (Iloilo, Philippines, 1896 – Barcelona, 1964) is the highest goal scorer in the club’s history with 369 goals in 357 games

#4 Ramon Torralba Larraz

Popularly known as 'la Vella' (the Old One), because of his long career with the Barça, Ramon Torralba (Ardisa, Zaragoza, 1887 – Barcelona, ?) is a legendary figure in the history of FC Barcelona due to his loyalty to the Club during fifteen seasons

#5 Josep Samitier

Considered the most emblematic player in the history of FC Barcelona and the best European forward of his times, Josep Samitier (Barcelona 1902-Barcelona 1972) led the terrific Barça in the golden age of the twenties

#6 Vicenç Piera

Known by the nickname of “The Witch”, Piera (Barcelona 1903-1960) was born in the Barcelona district Santos and was one of the best right wing players in the history of Spanish football

#7 Ferenc Platko

Platko (Budapest, Hungary, 1898 – Santiago, Chile, 1983) was signed in 1923 as the replacement for another legendary Barça stopper, Ricardo Zamora

#8 Martí Ventolrà

Considered one of the best wingers in Barça history Barça, Ventolrà (Barcelona, 1906 – Mexico City, 1977) was one of the biggest stars in the team in the thirties

#9 Josep Escolà

The gentleman of football, Escolà (Barcelona 1914 – Barcelona 1998), was a forward who would finish up many plays started from behind

#10 Mariano Martín

Known as the ‘fury of the area’, Mariano Martín (Dueñas, Palencia, 1919 – Barcelona, 1998) was one of the best strikers ever to grace FC Barcelona, incredibly scoring more than one goal a match

 #11 César Rodríguez

One of the best players in the history of FC Barcelona, an extraordinary striker with a great head for scoring

#12 Gonzalvo III

Marià Gonzalvo (Mollet del Vallès, 1922 - Barcelona, 2007), known as Gonzalo III (his other two brothers also played for FC Barcelona), is one of the best players to ever have worn the blaugrana colours

#13 Estanislau Basora

Basora (Colònia Valls, Barcelona, 1926) is considered one of the best wingers in the history of Spanish football

#14 Antoni Ramallets

Antonio Ramallets (Barcelona, 1924) was one of the best goalkeepers in the history of Barça and the whole of Spanish football signed up from Europa

#15 Joan Segarra

Known as “the great captain”, Segarra (Barcelona, 1927 - Taradell, 2008) was one of the moast charismatic players in the history of FC Barcelona

#16 Ladislao Kubala

A mythical figure of Barcelonismo (Budapest, Hungary, 1927 – Barcelona 2002), Kubala signed for FC Barcelona in June 1950, when he arrived with a team of refugee players from an Easter country called Hungary

#17 Sigfrid Gràcia

Gràcia (Gava, 1932 – Barcelona, 2005) came from a barcelonista background, where his style of play was highlighted by the sacrifices he made on pitch

#18 Luís Suárez

Considered one of the great masters of Spanish football, Luis Suárez (la Coruña, 1935) was one of the stars of the Barça side of the late fifties, but sadly his greatest and most successful period came when he was no longer a Barça player

#19 Eulogio Martínez

Eulogio Martínez (Asunción, Paraguay, 1935 – Calella, 1984) was one of the highest Barcelona goalscorers ever, with 168 goals in 225 appearances

#20 Ferran Olivella

Olivella (Barcelona 1936) has been one of the biggest captains in the history of the club and one of the players who has played the most amount games for the club (500)

#21 Evaristo de Macedo

Evaristo de Macedo (Río de Janeiro, Brazil, 1933) was one of the best foreign signings Barça ever made, and was an outstanding goalscorer

#22 Sandor Kocsis

Known as ‘Golden Head’ due to his amazing abilities in the air, Kocsis (Budapest, Hungary, 1929 – Barcelona, 1979) escaped from Hungary in 1956 following the Soviet intervention in his country, when he was already an established star of his time

#23 Salvador Sadurní

Sadurni (L'Arboç, Baix Penedès, 1941), considered the successor to the great goalkeeper Ramallets, always had a lot of competent players with him, firstly Pesudo and also Reina

#24 Joaquim Rifé

'Quimet' Rifé (Barcelona 1942) has been one of the players in the history of Barcelona who has most worn the Barcelona shirt; A total of 535 played matches make up his impressive CV

#25 Carles Rexach

Born in Barcelona in 1947, Charly (also known as the Pedralbes' boy) is an institution in Can Barça where he has spent practically all of his sports life

#26 Antoni Torres

Antoni Torres (Balaguer, 1943-Barcelona 2003) was a stopper (even though sometimes he played right wing) he was the one who “marked the line” i.e. offensive and tough while also being disciplined and regular

#27 Joan Manuel Asensi

One of the most emblematic players Barça had in the seventies, Asensi (Alicante, 1949) was a hard-working midfielder, the genuine lungs of a great team. He also had a terrific shot, both with his left foot and his head

#28 Johan Cruyff

Cruyff (Amsterdam, Holland, 1947) is one of the best players in the world of all time and in his time, he was considered number one

#29 Miguel Bernardo Bianquetti 'Migueli'

‘Tarzan’ Migueli (Ceuta 1951) is the player who has worn the blaugrana colours for the most amount of times in the history of the club (664). He has also been one of the best ever central defenders of the club

#30 Johan Neeskens

‘Johan II’ (Heemstede, Holland, 1951) arrived in Barcelona in 1974 from Ajax with fellow team mate Johan Cruyff

#31 Hans Krankl

Krankl (Vienna, Austria, 1953) wrote his name in the Barça history books by proving to be one of the best strikers and also one of the most adored players by the fans to have appeared for the club

#32 Enrique Castro, 'Quini'

Quini (Oviedo, 1949) was the epitomy of goalscoring excellence. Known as ‘el Brujo', ‘Quinocho' and ‘Quinigol', he was one of the best known striker's in Euroipean football at the time

#33 Bernd Schuster

Midfielder of exceptional quality, Schuster (Augsburgo, Germany, 1959) was the driving force of Barça throughout nearly all of the eighties

#34 Francisco Javier González Urruticoechea 'Urruti'

The unforgettable Urruti (San Sebastián, 1952 – Barcelona, 2001) is one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history of the Club and was a key figure in the successful outcome of the 1984/85 league season

#35 Diego Armando Maradona

Considered the best player in the world in the 1980s, and one of the greatest of all time, Maradona was born in 1960 in Lanús, Argentina

#36 Andoni Zubizarreta

Zubizarreta (Vitoria, 1961) was one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history not only of FC Barcelona, but of Spanish football in general

#37 José Mari Bakero

Bakero, the tireless midfielder from the Dream Team, was born in Goizueta (Navarra) in 1963. He will always be remembered for his crucial goal in Kaiserslautern in the 1991/92 European Cup

#38 Michael Laudrup

'Michelino' Laudrup was the artist of the Dream Team, a creative striker of such elegance that it was often joked that he was the kind of player that could play in a coat and tails

#39 Guillermo Amor

Amor (Benidorm, Alicante, 1967) was one of the most important players in the entire history of FC Barcelona, having made the third most club appearances behind only Migueli and Rexach

#40 Aitor Beguiristain 'Txiki'

Aitor Begiristain (Olaberria, Guipúzcoa, 1964), or 'Txiki' as he is known, was another of the key members of the legendary 'Dream Team'

#41 Ronald Koeman

'Tintin' Koeman will always get a mention in FC Barcelona history for scoring the goal that handed Barça victory in the 1992 European Cup at Wembley

#42 Josep Guardiola

'Pep' Guardiola was one of the best players ever to emerge from the Barça youth system.

#43 Hristo Stòitxkov

Hristo Stoichkov was born in Plovdiv (Bulgaria) in 1966. He left CSKA Sofia to join Barça in 1990 and stayed until 1998, although for one season, 1995-96, he was at Parma in Italy

#44 Romario da Sauza

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1966, Romario came to FC Barcelona from PSV Eindhoven in 1993

#45 Luis Enrique Martínez

The popular ‘Lucho' (Gijón, 1970) came to FC Barcelona in the summer of 1996 as a free agent after having played at Real Madrid for five seasons

#46 Ronaldo Liuz Nazario

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1976, Ronaldo joined Barça in 1996 from PSV Eindhoven, as an outstandingly promising young striker

#47 Vitor Borba Ferreira 'RIVALDO'

Rivaldo (Recife, Brazil, 1972) was signed from Deportivo la Coruña at the start of the 1997-98 season as a direct replacement for his compatriot Ronaldo, who had left for Inter Milan after an exceptional year in Catalonia

#48 Ronaldo de Assís Moreira ‘Ronaldinho’

The Brazilian striker was born at Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 1980. In his five seasons at the club he became one its greatest ever footballers and made a decisive contribution to winning two League titles and the Champions League

#49 Anderson Luis de Souza ‘Deco’

Even though he was born in Brazil (Sao Bernardo, 27-08-1977) Deco made his name as a player in Portugal before coming to Barça. His coach at the Catalan club, Frank Rijkaard, said that Deco was the barometer of the first team

#50 Samuel Eto'o

 Eto’o goes down in Barça history as “the indomitable lion”, the forward who never gave up. For 5 years he was the team’s target man, and the host of titles won were, to a massive extent, thanks to the crucial goals he scored

source : www.fcbarcelona.com