gaya u ito,,,,

^-^

haciit hian ulukku.. poangan,,

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Brief history

You can tell a lot about the success or decadence of a sports club from the type of facilities it uses. 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)v