Travel Guide for Barcelona and the Camp Nou

Below you will find your perfect guide for going to Spain to watch Barcelona at the Camp Nou!

Headlines from the travel guide:

• Camp Nou
• Matchday at Camp Nou
• Barcelona club history
• Book a trip to the Camp Nou

 

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Camp Nou

CAMP NOU HISTORY

Barca’s members voted to build a new arena on November 14, 1950: 7835 votes for, 1132 votes against. Barça was still a democracy – at odds with the fascist dictatorship of the time.

The desire for a new stadium was huge and 60,000 supporters were present when the foundation stone for the Camp Nou was put in place on March 28, 1954. The foundation stone was also the same as used for Les Corts 32 years earlier. It is now found in the Camp Nou’s chapel.

The bill for the arena ended at 288 million pesetas, more than four times as much as the builder’s original estimate. It took the club several years to raise the money needed to repay debts.

Camp Nou inaugural match

At the inaugural match on September 24, 1957 more than 90,000 spectators attended. At half time 10,000 pigeons were released from the stadium, and the whole team line-up was changed for the second half – the club wanted to let as many players as possible to enjoy this historic day.

The Camp Nou was extended in 1982 for the World Cup Finals with a further 22,150 seats added. Belgium played their three group matches here and surprisingly won the tournament’s opening match against Argentina 1-0. But then they lost against Poland (0-3) and the Soviet Union (0-1).

Poland returned to the Camp Nou for the semi-final which was won 2-0 by the future world champions Italy.

Ten years later  the Olympic football final was played at the Camp Nou. Poland were there once again but lost 3-2 to the host nation in the final minutes.

Club Cant del Barca

The Club Cant del Barça anthem was sung for the first time on November 27, 1974 at the club’s 75th anniversary. Twenty five years later it was Barca’s one hundred anniversary: Joan Manuel Serrat sang the club anthem, Barça faced Brazil and the club’s former players and heroes paraded inside the Camp Nou.

In 2000/01 the Camp Nou became the stadium’s official name. The membership voted to abandon the old and rarely used name Estadi del FC Barcelona.

It is the largest stadium in Europe and one of five Spanish stadiums to be awarded UEFA five-star status. The Camp Nou has received five stars not only as a football stadium, but also for its museum, documentation centre, a TV studio and sports medical centre.

The Camp Nou is now showing its age. Ambitious plans are in place to redevelop the stadium, covering the stands and increasing the capacity to 105 000. Work, costing €600 million, is expected to start in 2017 and be completed by 2021.

CAMP NOU DIRECTIONS

Metro:
Line 3 to Les Corts, Palau Reial or Maria Cristina.
Line 5 to Collblanc or Badal.

Bus: 
Lines 7, 15, 43, 67, 68, 74, 75 and 78.

BARCELONA BARS

There are plenty of bars near the Camp Nou, especially along Avenida Madrid and Carrer vay Blanca. In Travessera de les Corts there is a row of tapas bars.

Fairly close to the Camp Nou, Casa Jacinto (avda. Carlos iii, 29-31) serves good, traditional food in generous portions. You will find a rich blend of Barcelona’s business world with great football fans.

Another option for a bite to eat before or after the game is Telirium (C / Flos in Calcat, 18 / of. Diagonal, 652-654) that is a one-minute walk from the stadium.

At the restaurant Drolma (Paseo de Gracia, 68) chef Fermi Puig runs things along Cruyff’s principles of total football.

Here’s a few bars in Barcelona that could be worth a visit:

Palace Lounge Bar
c/ Vigatans 13 (Born)

Black Horse
c/ Allada Vermell 16

Michael Collins
Plaça de la Sagrada Família, 4

Temple Bar
Carrer de Ferran, 6

CAMP NOU TOUR

The Camp Nou Experience includes visits to the museum and a tour of the Camp Nou. The visitors are equipped with an audio guide available in seven languages.

Monday – Saturday:
09.30 – 19.30 (April – September)
10.00 – 18.30 (October – March)
Sunday: 10.00 – 14.30

There are no tours on La Liga and Copa del Rey matchdays.
There are no tours the day before, and the day of, Champions League matches.

€25.00 – adults
€20.00 – children and seniors

BARCELONA MUSEUM

Museu FC Barcelona opened in 1984 and has since been extended three times. Around one and a half million visitors annually marvel at FC Barcelona’s glorious history. Besides hordes of trophies and souvenirs there are also audiovisuals that take visitors on more than a century of time travel.

The Camp Nou Experience includes visits to the museum and a tour of the Camp Nou. The visitors are equipped with an audio guide available in seven languages.

Monday – Saturday:
10.00 to 20.00 (April – September)
10.00 to 18.30 (October – March)
Sunday: 10.00 to 14.30

The museum is open until 3 hours before kick off on La Liga and Copa del Rey matchdays.
It is open until 3pm on Champions League matchdays.

BARCELONA STORES OPENING TIMES

FCBotiga stocks more than 3,000 items. The main store is at the Camp Nou (at entry 7) and the 2000 sq m shop is visited by over two million customers annually.

Monday – Saturday: 10.00 – 19.00
Sunday: 10.30 – 15.30
On match days, open until kickoff.

You can also find FCBotiga on a smaller scale in several places in Barcelona:
Sagrada Familia
La Roca Village (La Roca del Vallès)
Casino Barcelona
Sants Estación
Centro Comercial Maremàgnum
Centro Comercial  Las Arenas
Ronda Universitat (vid Plaza Catalunya)
Jaume I nº18
Aeropuerto de Barcelona  (T1 och T2)
Passeig de Gràcia

BARCELONA TRAINING GROUND

Barca’s official training facility Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper was inaugurated in June 2006 in Sant Joan Despí, 4.5 km from the Camp Nou. The club has invested €68 million and it has nine football pitches including four with artificial turf. There is also a sports hall with fitness opportunities including basketball, handball and futsal. The Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, 136,839 square metres in size, also has a gym, swimming pool, facilities for medical treatment and facilities for the media.

The A-team frequently train at La Masia at the Camp Nou. On match days the team generally train at the Camp Nou. These workouts are closed to the public.

BARCELONA CLUB HISTORY

Barcelona are founded

Football Club Barcelona was founded on the initiative of Hans Gamper, a 22-year-old Swiss man, on November 29, 1899.

A month earlier he had put an ad in a local sports magazine: ‘Players Wanted’. Eleven enthusiasts responded to the appeal. The club colours – blue and red – were taken from the flag in Ticino, the canton in Switzerland which Gamper came from.

Barcelona’s first match on December 8, 1899 ended in a 1-0 defeat against a team of Englishmen who lived in Barcelona. The English team had however been reinforced with a couple of players from Barca …

Two years later the team got their revenge. When the Carretera d’Horta Arena was opened on November 23, 1901 they played a match against a team of sailors from a British ship. This time Barca won 4-0 and the club founder Joan (Hans) Gamper scored three of the goals. That year he scored no fewer than 49 of the team’s 88 goals.

Barca won their first Catalan championships in 1905 and five years later were victorious for the first time the Spanish Cup.

Barcelona: Camp de Les Corts

Camp de Les Corts, with a capacity of 30,000, was inaugurated on May 20, 1922.

The twenties was a brilliant period in Barca’s history: eight Catalan championships and five Spanish cups was followed by the first Spanish league victory in the 1928-29 season. The team’s big stars were Josep Samitier, Paulino Alcantara and Ricardo Zamora.

The thirties were a difficult time for Barca: sporting, political and economic and while the club still dominated Catalan football there were no Spanish titles.

A month after the Civil War erupted in 1936 club president Josep Suñol was assassinated by Franco’s soldiers. The team’s players had been on tour in Mexico and the United States and half of the players sought asylum in Mexico and France.

The club lost three-quarters of its members, and after the Civil War in 1939 there were only 3,486 left. Franco also appointed his hand-picked men as Barca’s club management.

In the face of adversity Barca managed to win the Spanish league in 1945, 1948 and 1949. In 1949 the club celebrated its 50th anniversary and by this time there were 24,893 members.

Barcelona: 1950s

The fifties began brilliantly: from 1951 to 1953 FC Barcelona won the cup three years in a row and the league two years running. Much of the credit for the success went to Ladislao Kubala. The Hungarian, with his deadly free kicks and his spectacular playing style, was a precursor to a more recent Barça player: Diego Maradona.

Despite the fact the Les Corts stadium had been expanded to hold 60,000 spectators, this was still not enough.

When the Camp Nou was inaugurated in 1957 it meant 90,000 fans could celebrate the club’s success – including victories in seasons 1958/59 and 1959/60.

During the sixties, the success was more limited: just two cup titles in 1963 and 1968.

More importantly perhaps, in January 1968 the club’s new president Narcis de Carreras launched Barca’s motto: “MES que un club” – more than a club.

Barcelona: Cruyff the player

In October 1973 Johan Cruyff arrived as a long-awaited hero. After an historic 5-0 away win against Real Madrid, Barca could celebrate their 75th anniversary as league champions.

Four years later the club won the European Cup Winners Cup for the first time. In front of 30,000 jubilant Barca supporters in Basel, the side fought back to beat Fortuna Dusseldorf 4-3 after extra time.

Despite five cup titles in the eighties – three Spanish and two more in the Cup Winners Cup – the club’s leadership and members demanded more success. Only one league title in 16 years was not enough.

Barcelona: Cruyff the manager

Once again the Catalans called on Johan Cruyff – this time as coach and the FC Barcelona ‘Dream Team’, including Koeman, Stoichkov, Laudrup and Guardiola delivered what was expected: four straight league titles and the European Cup in 1992.

Towards the end of the decade they captured a fourth Cup Winners’ Cup title in 1997, two cup titles (1997 and 1998) and two successive league titles (1998 and 1999).

After a few years’ drought of titles, a new generation of football superstars got Barca off the ground again with victories in 2005 and 2006 and the coveted Champions League trophy in 2006.

Pep Guardiola, a legend as a player, took over as coach in the 2008/09 season. The debut season exceeded all expectations.

They became the first Spanish club to win the treble – League, Cup and UEFA Champions League. And to cap it all supporters also had a welcome Christmas present: FC Barcelona became the third European club to win the FIFA World Cup.

Barcelona: Lionel Messi

Barca were also league champions in 2009/10. But it was only after a battle  to the wire with Real Madrid as they secured the league title on the last day of the season. The great little hero was Lionel Messi. With his 34 league goals, he won both the Pichichi Trophy as Spanish top scorer and Golden Boot as Europe’s top goal-shooter.

The following year, Barca won the league for the third consecutive year. And not only that – even the Champions League trophy came back to Barcelona. They beat Manchester United 3-1 in the final at Wembley after a brilliant display.

In December 2011 Barca won the FIFA Club World Cup for the second time.

Another Barça legend, Luis Enrique took over as a coach in 2014. Then Luis Suárez joined. Neymar had arrived the year before and now the club had the world’s most potent attacking force: Argentine Messi, Uruguayan Suárez and Brazilian Neymar.

In the 2014/15 season, the trio scored an average of 2.42 goals per game. It was enough to win the Spanish league and cup titles, the Champions League (3-1 against Juventus) and the FIFA Club World Cup. Barça are the only club to have won the world championship three times

BARCELONA FACTS

FC Barcelona’s founder Hans Gamper was also involved in the formation of FC Zurich in Switzerland.

Barca’s first president – who was also in the team – was Englishman Walter Wild. From the beginning, there was international influence in the club, and over the years this has made FC Barcelona one of Europe’s most successful clubs. No other team has qualified for European football every year since its inception in 1955.

The number of club members is also impressive: 177,246. In addition, Barça has 1,444 official supporters clubs.

Catalan club

The other side of the club’s long history is national pride. Barcelona is not primarily a Spanish club – it is a Catalan club.

During the dark years of Franco’s dictatorship Barca’s home games every other Sunday were an opportunity for political opposition. Catalan flags were proudly and defiantly waved in the stands. The fact that the club won more titles than any other club in Spain between 1939 – 1953 was for many people not only a great sporting success – it was also a major political victory.

From 1909 to 1922 Barcelona played their home games at the stadium Camp del Carrer Indústria which was the first in Catalonia with floodlighting. Because of its small size, the arena was called “l’Escopidora” (spittoon). However up to 6,000 spectators could squeeze into it.

The memory of overcrowding has retained until today: when Barca fans travel to away games, they call themselves the ICC – Inter City Culés. The name refers to when fans had to sit on the wall around Carrer Indústria and their ‘culés’ – bottoms – stuck out.

Catalan choir

To raise money for the Orfeo Català, a Catalan choir,  a match between Barca and Jupiter was organised on June 24, 1925. When the visiting English naval orchestra began to play the Spanish national anthem the audience showed her vocal disapproval. They confused the musicians and they could not think of anything better than playing God Save the Queen, and the audience politely applauded.

Spain’s dictator Primo De Rivera was furious over this display of Catalan nationalism. Les Corts was closed for six months and Joan Gamper, Barca’s founder and chairman, was expelled from the country and forced to return to Switzerland.

During Kubala’s first season at Barcelona the club defeated Sporting de Gijon 9-0 – and he scored seven of the goals.

Final European cup

FC Barcelona won the European Cup May 20, 1992 at Wembley – the final season before the tournament became the UEFA Champions League. The opponents were Sampdoria and the only goal of the game came from a Ronald Koeman free-kick. Of course, his historical football boot is on display at Barca’s museum.

In 1999, when FC Barcelona celebrated its centenary, the club won four league championships: football, basketball, handball – and roller hockey.

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