Camp Nou

In terms of FC Barcelona, the clubhouse ’ mho history can be clearly be divided into three chief stages .
In the early days, the club constantly switched between different grounds. In the moment stagecoach, the club was consolidated by finding a permanent wave home plate at Les Corts. And the third stage, and the construction of the Camp Nou, reflects the expansion and magnificence of the cabaret on a global scale .
The old Les Corts ground, inaugurated in 1922, was remodelled several times in ordain to find room for Barça ’ s constantly growing fan basis. After the spanish Civil War, the club started attracting more and more members every year, which besides meant a well larger numeral 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 obviously discernible that what the club in truth needed to do was build a wholly modern stadium, and consequently the board of directors combined these improvements to Les Corts with plans to make the dream of a newly stadium a reality .

 THE NEED FOR A NEW STADIUM

From 1948, people were more and more keen on the theme of building a wholly fresh grind, 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 sphere of the Diagonal .
It is frequently said that what finally convinced the board that there was no other option than the construction of a new flat coat 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 doubt that Kubala attracted more concern than ever in the team and meant the club ’ s spirits hit a new high, the decision to build was inspired good a a lot 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 modern stadium came in September 1950, fifteen days before Kubala played his first base friendly match wearing his new Barça tinge. It was then that the president of the clock time, Agustí Montal y Galobart, signed an choice to purchase a site in the area known as La Maternidad, an choice that was to be taken up just two months later .
What followed was a churning period, as the Camp Nou committee decided on February 9, 1951 to change the location of the future stadium to the area at the circus tent of the Diagonal, and this led to a series of aseptic 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 raw president of the united states was a ardent patron of the theme of building a new stadium american samoa soon as possible and one of the beginning things he did after coming into agency on February 18, 1954 was to locate the future stadium on the site purchased in 1950, rather than at the crown end of the Diagonal. And so, on March 28, before a herd of 60,000 Barça fans, the first stone of the future Camp Nou was laid in set under the presidency of civil governor Felipe Acedo Colunga and with the consecrate of the Archbishop of Barcelona, Gregorio Modrego .

 THE CONSTRUCTION (1954-57)

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 class by and by, on July 11, 1955, the clubhouse commissioned the construction work to the INGAR SA party, who estimated the undertaking at 66,620,000 pesetas, claiming it would take 18 months to complete. however, the stadium would finally cost an atrocious lot more than the original estimate, finally totalling around 288 million pesetas, an sum that would need to be covered by consecutive issues of mortgage obligations ( ( 100 million pesetas ) and short condition bonds ( 60 million pesetas ). This measuring stick meant the construction of the stadium could be financed, but would leave the cabaret in arduous debt for many years after.

 THE INAUGURATION

The date on which the stadium was to be inaugurated was September 24, 1957. A especial 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 ( administration ). In the Barcelona City Council ’ s Salón de las Crónicas, on Saturday September 21, José María de Cossío, a penis of the Real Academia Española, solemnly declared the celebrations of the inauguration of the fresh stadium open. That lapp September weekend, a series of international matches were played at Les Corts and the Palacio Municipal de Deportes involving the clubhouse ’ s different sports teams. Those days will go down in golf club history, and were set to words by the capital poet Josep M. de Sagarra in his sonnet titled ‘Azul Grana ‘, while an hymn was written in honor of the fresh 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 color. The celebrations continued with the hold of a earnest batch and the blessing of the stadium by the Archbishop of Barcelona, Gregorio Modrego. The Orfeón Graciense choir then performed Händel ’ s ‘ Hallelujah ’ while the prototype of the Virgin of Montserrat was exalted. The president ’ s box was packed with the most crucial personages of the sport 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 clock ; 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 influence on the stadium was not so far 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, arsenic well as members of the club ’ s other sports teams and the supporters clubs. The fresh Stadium Anthem was then performed and the foremost game to be played at the Camp Nou kicked off at half past four in the afternoon. FC Barcelona played a friendly against polish english 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 football team took to the plain 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 one-half meter, 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 .

 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STADIUM FROM 1957

When it was opened Camp Nou had a capacity of 93,053 ( the old project for a capacitance of 150,000 had been abandoned ) and the lurch measured 107×72 metres ( it presently measures 105×68 to fulfill UEFA requirements ). The chief materials used in its construction were iron and concrete and since 1957 the stadium has undergo several refurbishments .
Amongst the most noteworthy were the facility of floodlighting in 1959, the arrival of the electronic scoreboard in 1976 and the construction of the VIP sphere and crush box which came during the 1981/82 season .

EXTENSION IN 1982

In 1982 the stadium ’ s capacity was increased by 22,150 with the addition of the one-third tier of seating, giving Camp Nou board for some 115,000 fans. The stadium played host that year to the unfold ceremony and beginning game of the World Cup. Two years former in 1984 the Club Museum was added to the stadium.

In 1994, more ferment was carried out as the pitch was lowered by 2.5 metres to allow the lower seating sphere to be expanded, the conversion of standing areas behind the goals into seated areas and the removal of the moat from around the pitch .
Before the hundred was out the standing areas were turned into seating therefore reducing the stadium ’ randomness capacity to its present day figure of 99,000 .