In the late 1800’s Hans Gamper and ten other enthusiasts were playing an unidentified game called ‘foot-ball’. When Gamper went on to found Barcelona Football Club on 29 November 1899, he could hardly have imagined the momentous events that would follow. Throughout some of Catalonia’s most difficult years, the flag represented the people's hopes for freedom, and today that very flag is the symbolic link which continues to represent the ties between a very special club and its’ supporters.
Barcelona is in the extremely enviable position of being the only team in Europe to have participated in every European Cup since 1955 the first year the tournament began. It also won the supreme continental prize. Their massive European trophy collection also includes the Cup Winners’ Cup, which the club has won no less than four times - making it undisputed king. In addition, Barca - common name for Barcelona Football club - accumulated three UEFA Cups in the 1958, 1960 and 1966 seasons. The Club retained the trophy in perpetuity after winning a special final in 1971, which paired together the first winner of the competition, FC Barcelona, against the last winner, Leeds United. However, Barca does not just reign in Europe but also in Spain, specifically in the Kings Cup, leading the ranking of winners in this competition with 24 titles.
Evidently, Barcelona reigns in Spain as well as in Europe and no other Spanish team can equal Barcelona’s 24 championship titles in the Copa del Rey. As for the Spanish championship league, Barcelona celebrates the centenary birthday with 16 league titles to its name. Six of these were amassed over the last ten years alone.
The FC Barcelona is currently a sports unit which includes basketball, handball, hockey, athletics, ice-hockey, figure skating, indoor football, rugby, baseball, volleyball and women’s football sections. The football team is the only side to have qualified for European competition every year since its inauguration in 1955. There are now a total of 105,706 members and 1,508 supporters clubs.
Over the course of 100 years, the club has lived through moments of brilliance and misfortune, through good times and bad, through epic victories and crushing defeats. Each one of these moments has contributed to shaping Barcelona into the absolutely unique club that it is today. Barcelona’s renown can be attributed, in part, to impressive statistics but another factor is certainly that Barcelona is one of the most highly decorated teams in the world. With the exception of the International Cup, the showcases of the Barcelona museum contain every trophy possible. Topping off the impressive collection is the European Cup, the crowning glory of a Wembley final that went into the history books.
FC Barcelona’s Museum is the most visited Museum in the city with the famous Picasso Museum a near second. It was set up in 1984. Year after year the museum has increased its number of visitors and become an ever more important tool for spreading the name of the club far and wide. Not only is it the best football museum in the world, it is also the most popular museum of any kind in Catalonia, regularly receiving more than 1,160,000 visitors a year, and is a reference point for many other such museums around the world.
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