In terms of FC Barcelona, the club’s history can be clearly be divided into three main stages.
In
the early days, the club constantly switched between different grounds.
In the second stage, the club was consolidated by finding a permanent
home at Les Corts. And the third stage, and the construction of the Camp
Nou, reflects the expansion and grandeur of the club on a global scale.
The old Les Corts ground, inaugurated in 1922, was remodelled
several times in order to find room for Barça’s constantly growing fan
base. After the Spanish Civil War, the club started attracting more and
more members every year, which also meant a considerably larger number
of spectators at matches. This increased support was the inspiration for
several expansion projects, of the south goal (1946), the north goal
(1950), and the grandstand’s capacity (1944). But it was becoming
patently evident that what the club really needed to do was build a
completely new stadium, and therefore the board of directors combined
these improvements to Les Corts with plans to make the dream of a new
stadium a reality.
The need for a new stadium From 1948, people
were more and more keen on the idea of building a completely new ground,
but this was not an easy thing to do, and it was necessary to convince
the local authorities that a new stadium would be able to fit in with
the plans at the time to develop the upper area of the Diagonal.
It
is often said that what finally convinced the board that there was no
other option than the construction of a new ground was the arrival of
the now legendary Ladislau Kubala, one of the finest players ever to
appear for FC Barcelona. And although there can be no doubting that
Kubala attracted more interest than ever in the team and meant the
club’s spirits hit a new high, the decision to build was inspired just
as much by the two League titles won in 1947-48 and 1948-49, which was
before the great Hungarian had signed for the club.
In fact, the
first solid step towards a new stadium came in September 1950, fifteen
days before Kubala played his first friendly match wearing his new Barça
colours. It was then that the president of the time, Agustí Montal y
Galobart, signed an option to purchase a site in the area known as La
Maternidad, an option that was to be taken up just two months later.
What
followed was a turbulent period, as the Camp Nou commission decided on
February 9, 1951 to change the location of the future stadium to the
area at the top of the Diagonal, and this led to a series of sterile
negotiations with the Authorities that did not seem to be getting
anywhere. The matter seemed to have been shelved for good when Francesc
Miró-Sans won the FC Barcelona presidential elections on November 14,
1953. The new president was a fervent supporter of the idea of building a
new stadium as soon as possible and one of the first things he did
after coming into office on February 18, 1954 was to locate the future
stadium on the site purchased in 1950, rather than at the top end of the
Diagonal. And so, on March 28, before a crowd of 60,000 Barça fans, the
first stone of the future Camp Nou was laid in place under the
presidency of civil governor Felipe Acedo Colunga and with the blessing
of the Archbishop of Barcelona, Gregorio Modrego.
The construction (1954-1957) The architects of
the new stadium were Francesc Mitjans Miró, cousin of Miró-Sans, and
Josep Soteras Mauri, with the collaboration of Lorenzo García Barbón.
More than a year later, on July 11, 1955, the club commissioned the
construction work to the INGAR SA company, who estimated the project at
66,620,000 pesetas, claiming it would take 18 months to complete.
However, the stadium would eventually cost an awful lot more than the
original estimate, eventually totalling around 288 million pesetas, an
amount that would need to be covered by successive issues of mortgage
obligations ((100 million pesetas) and short term bonds (60 million
pesetas). This measure meant the construction of the stadium could be
financed, but would leave the club in heavy debt for many years after.
The inauguration The date on which the stadium
was to be inaugurated was September 24, 1957. A special commission was
organised whose task was to organise the kind of opening ceremony that
the occasion warranted, with two people in charge of the operation:
Aleix Buxeres (public relations) and Nicolau Casaus (organisation). In
the Barcelona City Council’s Salón de las Crónicas, on Saturday
September 21, José María de Cossío, a member of the Real Academia
Española, solemnly declared the celebrations of the inauguration of the
new stadium open. That same September weekend, a series of international
matches were played at Les Corts and the Palacio Municipal de Deportes
involving the club’s different sports teams. Those days will go down in
club history, and were set to words by the great poet Josep M. de
Sagarra in his sonnet titled 'Azul Grana', while an anthem was written
in honour of the new FC Barcelona stadium, with Josep Badia putting the
words to Adolf Cabané’s music.
On the day of the 1957 Mercè
Festival, the city was decked out in the FC Barcelona colours. The
celebrations continued with the holding of a solemn mass and the
blessing of the stadium by the Archbishop of Barcelona, Gregorio
Modrego. The Orfeón Graciense choir then performed Händel’s ‘Hallelujah’
while the image of the Virgin of Montserrat was exalted. The
president’s box was packed with the most important personages of the
sporting and political worlds of the period, including club president
Francesc Miró-Sans; José Solís Ruiz, general secretary for Movement,
which was the equivalent of the ministry of sport at the time; José
Antonio Elola Olaso, head of the National Delegation of Sportspeople;
Felipe Acedo, civil governor of Barcelona, and Josep M. de Porcioles,
Mayor of Barcelona.
Although work on the stadium was not yet
complete, more than 90,000 spectators were able to witness the event,
which continued with representatives of all the major football clubs in
Catalonia parading on the pitch, as well as members of the club’s other
sports teams and the supporters clubs. The new Stadium Anthem was then
performed and the first game to be played at the Camp Nou kicked off at
half past four in the afternoon. FC Barcelona played a friendly against
Polish side Warsaw. The first Barça line-up ever to appear at the Camp
Nou featured: Ramallets, Olivella, Brugué, Segarra, Vergés, Gensana,
Basora, Villaverde, Martínez, Kubala and Tejada. A different eleven took
to the field in the second half: Ramallets, Segarra, Brugué, Gràcia,
Flotados, Bosch, Hermes, Ribelles, Tejada, Sampedro and Evaristo. Barça
won the match 4-2 with goals from Eulogio Martínez (whose 11th minute
strike was the first goal ever at the Camp Nou), Tejada, Sampedro and
Evaristo. At half time, 1,500 members of the Agrupación Cultural
Folclórica de Barcelona danced a huge sardana and freed 10,000 doves.
And so it was that a brand new period in the history of FC Barcelona had
begun.
http://www.fcbarcelona.com/club/facilites-and-services/detail/card/brief-history
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Keane memprotes kualitas fasilitas yang didapat skuat timnas Irlandia
saat bersiap mengikuti Piala Dunia 2002 di Korea Selatan dan Jepang
dengan sasaran sang pelatih, McCarthy. Pertikaian keduanya berakhir
dengan kepulangan Keane dari Saipan dan absen di turnamen. Irlandia
sendiri mampu melaju hingga babak 16 besar sebelum disingkirkan Spanyol
melalui adu penalti. McCarthy pulang disambut bak pahlawan karena
penampilan gigihnya, tapi barangkali dia tidak melupakan umpatan Keane.
Perilaku
temperamental Keane mungkin saja hasil didikan keras Clough di
Nottingham Forest. Seperti diakui pula oleh Keane, manajer fenomenal itu
pernah menghajarnya karena melakukan kesalahan pada pertandingan
melawan Crystal Palace, 1991 silam. "Saya hanya pernah memukul Roy
sekali. Dia langsung bangun, jadi saya mungkin tidak terlalu keras
memukulnya," ujar Clough suatu ketika.
Kejadian
ini dikenal sebagai "Kopfstoss-Skandal". Pada pertandingan Bundesliga
Jerman antara MSV Duisburg dan FC Koln, 6 Desember 2005, Meier mengumpat
Streit yang sedang berupaya mencegah pemain Duisburg melancarkan
serangan balik. Mendadak keduanya terjatuh di pinggir lapangan sambil
memegang kepala masing-masing. Streit diberikan kartu merah, tetapi
rekaman video membuktikan Meier yang lebih dahulu menanduk wajah pemain
Koln itu. Hasilnya, Meier diberi sanksi tiga bulan oleh federasi
sepakbola Jerman.
