If you ask to the people around the world, “What is Barcelona?” the answer of the majority would probably be “football team”. This football Club has become synonymous with the City and the things it represents so much that, even the residents of the city may give this answer. Their slogan “More than just a club” fits into place. The meaning of this Club, for Catalan people, does really means more than just a club.
As a football country, in Spain, football means politics from time to time. Especially during Franco dictatorship, Real Madrid – Barcelona games was not only a sportive competition. The representative of Franco and central politics against the representative of the opponents of the central politics and the people who tries to protect their local values. At that time Real Madrid was dominating in sportive competition, but this is no longer.
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Catalan people has other football teams like Athletic Bilbao and Espanyol. Moreover, Athletic Bilbao has a radical approach to have only Catalan players in team. Still, Barcelona’s place is very different from the others, I think because of the sportive achievements. Success, especially sportive, brings people together.
Camp Nou was built in 1957. At that time, it was already a big stadium, but its further expanded to 98000 in 1982. Connections to the city’s subway system is very easy to reach and this encourages people to go to the games. As I see there is no parking problem, as well.
In college, though not very often, I went to football games. But the fanaticism we see in our stadiums put me off from football and pushes closer to basketball. Still, I’m trying to follow better games only on television. When a Barcelona travel was on the agenda, the first thing that comes to my mind was to go to a game in Barcelona with my father. In fact, I planned the trip determining the dates of the Barcelona ‘s home games. I decided on flight dates and then get surprised when searching for tickets for Barcelona game. The game was two and half months away, but two tickets side by side was only available on the uppermost seats in the stadium. This is how football supporters should be. By buying a season ticket…
When the day came, we went to stadium two hours before the game out of habit, but the situation was far from any stadium in Istanbul. It was not very crowded, meaning people are still at their homes… or in bars. So we had time to buy our favorite players’ shirts. Since the impatience grows to see the inside of the stadium, we moved to the gates.
Unease that comes from being abroad is a usual tourist problem. Added uneasiness of the big crowds in stadiums made us to leave credit cards and extra money at hotel and bring passport for the police control (a usual procedure in Turkey). But to our surprise we didn’t see a control and like entering to a theater hall showing the ticket was enough. Prepared for a possible control, halted for a moment with arms up in the air, I continued my way with an embarrassment when I didn’t see any police or something around. Civilization is measured by the height of sidewalks as the saying goes, it is true. But without the need of a police control when entering the stadium is also a very important indicator.
When inside, it is easy to find your place in Stadium. Well, in terms of navigation I mean. If you will walk to the upper seats like me, a long way is waiting for you. For fifteen minutes we climbed up and I was shocked when I enter the stadium. Dimensions is so great that I had difficulty comprehending it. After finding our place and calming down, I felt both surprised and a little bit disappointed. There was only an hour left and there was around 1000 people in this giant stadium. I would rather prefer to see all 98000 seats full. This game was against Almeria, a relatively easy component, so I thought that, that is the reason of the empty seats.
While waiting the game I began to examine the people around me. A few rows front of us, a lovely couple aged around 70 was drinking beer and eating their sandwiches. A dad with his 6 years old son come to my attention. And I can say that, the number of women were near to number of men in Camp Nou. The structure of this audience is not different than the people in a museum, a concert or theater. Men and women from every age comes to a Sunday activity in a friendly mood. Hard to believe without seeing since in Turkey we are accustomed to a different situation.
While waiting I surprised once more. Do you remember, I said there was around 1000 people when an hour left to game. This number reached around 5000 after half and hour. At least we’ll be cheering a little bit I thought. Then an amazing thing happened, and in 15 minutes the stadium was half full. Wow I said, now this will be a realistic experience. Then I forgot the audiences since the teams were on the ground, getting ready to game. Until, teams were ready to kick off. I literally astonished to see that Camp Nou was full to the last seat!
Well, this is all I can do to tell a memory in Camp Nou. With the kick off the magic starts but it doesn’t end with the end whistle. That memory is never forgotten, especially if lived with Father. One of the greatest memories of a father and son is to enjoy a football game. I’m lucky enough to live this memory in Camp Nou.
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