Nessie School of Languages

Barca: A People’s Passion
FC Barcelona is much more than a football club- it is a social and
political phenomenon. And this is much more than a book about football-
it is also a story of more than one hundred years of obsessive Catalan
pride. The only full history of FC Barcelona and Catalonia in English,
it contains some of the great moments-and personalities-of football
history, from the stardom of Johan Cruyff to the early days in Europe
of the great but tragically flawed Diego Maradona. This is also the
club that took on Franco during the Spanish Civil War and embarked
on one of world’s sports biggest rivalries, in its eternal struggle
with Real Madrid. I hope you will find it packed with revelations about
extraordinary characters such as Patrick O’Connell, the one-time
Manchester United player who bravely stuck it out as FC Barcelona’s
coach after its president was shot by Franco loyalists. An essential
read not just for football fanatics but any visitor to Spain, in
particular Barcelona? I hope so.

This book is the stroy and anatomy of Football Club Barcelona, one of the world’s most loved sporting institutions – an international passion -. No sporting motto is more appropriate that the club’s own Som més que un club. Barça, as it is affectionately known by millions of fans around the world, has secured a number of successes both at home and abroad, but the loyalty and popularity it generates has for years had less to do with itss success on the football pitch than with its transformation into a potent symbol of political and cultural identity. Spain’s fin de siècle 1898 may have meant the end of an imperial dream, but for the Catalans – for so long accustomed to defeat and humiliation – the year marked a turning point. The early twentieth century saw Barcelona’s regeneration as one of Europe’s most enterprising cities, with the appearance of a football club justifiably proud of its name. The growth of Barça as a sporting success projects the region’s cultural and political revival to the outside world, as the club developed into the most revered symbol of Catalan nationalism as well as an expression of human rights. Repressed during the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera in the 1920s and during the Franco years, it became a vehicle for a powerful collective identity, both defiant of dictatorship, and proud of sporting language and expression that reached out, beyond the isolating frontiers of the spanish Satate, to Europe and beyond.
What this book by Jimmy Burns is about is, like Barça itself, more than just a football club. It identifies and portrays some of the great moments of football history as plaues and managed by its collection of superstars. But its prime objective is to follow and dissect the human drama surrounding Barça’s evolution as a political and sociological phenomenon, drawing on the testimony of key witnesses to bring alive the history of a collective experience.