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Indescribable Stadium - Barcelona
By Anil Gupta
The Barcelona football stadium is the 3rd largest football stadium in the World after the stadiums in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Mexico City. Barcelona camp nou has a capacity of 110,000 people and on every match practically every seat is taken -such is the passion for football shared by the Catalan people.
When Kubula arrived, the old Les Corts stadium proved to be too small and it was necessary to find a new site. From when the idea was first thought of until the day it was opened on 24th September 1957, there were difficult moments for the Camp Nou, but the dream eventually became a reality.
The Old Football Ground had been founded back in 1922, and after several extensions, was able to hold 60,000 spectators, a figure that was practically impossible to increase any more. So, on September 19, 1950, FC Barcelonas Board of Directors, presided by Agustí Montal Galobart, purchased a plot of land next to the Maternitat, fairly close to the site of the old Les Corts ground.
The issue was left on hold until Francesc Miró-Sans was elected president of FC Barcelona. The new president was particularly insistent that the project for a new stadium should go ahead immediately and one of the first things he did after coming to power was to situate the new site on the land purchased in 1950 and not at the top of the Diagonal. So it was that, on March 28, in front of 60,000 fans, he laid the first stone of the Camp Nou, watched by the president of the Civil Government, Felipe Acedo Colunga, and blessed by the Archbishop of Barcelona, Gregorio Modrego.
The project for the new stadium was entrusted to the architects Francesc Mitjans Miró, Miró-Sans cousin, and Josep Soteras Mauri, under collaboration with Lorenzo García Barbón. However, later the Club handed the construction rights to INGAR SA.
The date for the inauguration of the Estadi was set at September 24, 1957. An organizing committee was formed to plan a special opening ceremony, which was presided by Aleix Buxeres and Nicolau Casaus. On September 21 in the Barcelona Councils Assembly Room, José Maria de Cossío, a member of the Real Academia Española, read the proclamation that officially opened the celebrations of the inauguration of the new stadium. That September weekend, members of different sections of the Club appeared in a series of international sports meetings at the Les Corts stadium and the Palau Municipal dEsports. Those important events were enough to inspire the renowned poet Josep M. de Sagarra to write a sonnet entitled Blau Grana, and the creation of the FC Barcelona Stadiums hymn with lyrics by Josep Badia to the music of Adolf Cabané.
On that day of the Mercè festival in 1957, the city was clothed in the colors of the Club. The inauguration began with a solemn mass and the blessing of the stadium by the Archbishop of Barcelona, Gregorio Modrego.
The terraces of the Camp Nou, still not quite complete, were opened to more than 90,000 people, as representatives of all of the football clubs of Catalonia paraded across the field, along with members of the sections of the Club, Barcelona fan clubs and different teams belonging to the Club. The hymn was then sung, followed, at four thirty in the afternoon, by the inaugural match. FC Barcelona played a Polish team from Warsaw. During the break, 1,500 members of the Agrupació Cultural Folklòrica de Barcelona danced an enormous sardana and 10,000 doves were set free. And so began a new era in the history of FC Barcelona.
About the Author
Anil Gupta recommends that you visit http://www.bookings.es/city/es/barcelona.html?aid=305255 for more information on barcelona hotels.
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