Joan Gamper
Joan Gamper (born
Winterthur,
Switzerland,
November 22 1877, died
July 30 1930,
Switzerland) also known as
Joan Kamper,
Hans Gamper and
Hans Kamper) was a
football pioneer, player and club president. He founded football clubs in
Switzerland and
Spain, most notably
FC Barcelona. As club president, he helped establish
FC Barcelona as one the leading clubs in
Spain.
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Joan Gamper, founder of FC Barcelona |
Born
Hans-Max Gamper Haessig, he was the eldest son, third of five children born to August and Rosine Emma Gamper. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was eight and the family moved to
Zurich. As a youngster he was a keen cyclist and runner. Throughout his life he was a lover of all sports and, apart from
football, he also played
rugby,
tennis and
golf. In Switzerland he was highly regarded as a footballer. He was club captain at
FC Basel and then helped form and played for both
FC Excelsior Zurich and
FC Zurich. In 1897 work took him to
Lyon in
France where he played rugby for Athletique Union.
In 1898 he went to
Barcelona to visit his uncle, Emili Gaissert, who was living there. He was on his way to Africa to help set up some sugar trading companies but fell in love with the Catalonian city and decided to stay put. He would later become a fluent
Catalan speaker and adopt the Catalan version of his name,
Joan Gamper. As an accountant, he found work with
Crédit Lyonnais, the Sarria Railway Company and as a sports columnist, he worked for two Swiss newspapers. He joined the local Swiss Evangelical Church and began playing football within the local Protestant community in the district of Sant Gervasi. He also attended the Gimanasio Solé and helped publish a magazine,
Los Deportes .
In October 22th 1899 he placed an advert in
Los Deportes declaring his wish to form a football club. A positive response resulted in a meeting at the Gimanasio Sole on November 29 and
Football Club Barcelona was born. The founders included a collection of Swiss, British and Catalan enthusiasts. Legend has it that that Gamper chose the legendary club colours,
blaugrana, after
FC Basel. However the other Swiss teams Gamper played for, his home canton of
Zurich and
Merchant Taylors' School in Crosby,
Merseyside have all been credited and/or claimed to be the inspiration. Although Gamper was the driving force behind the club, initially he chose only to be a board member and club captain. He was still only 22 and wanted to concentrate on playing the game he loved. He played 48 games for FC Barcelona between 1899 and 1903, scoring over 100 goals. His team mates included
Arthur Witty. In 1900-01 he was a member of the
FC Barcelona team that won the clubs first trophy, the
Copa Macaya. This competition is now recognised as the first Catalan championship. In 1902 he played in the very first
Copa del Rey final. Barca lost 2-1 to
Club Vizcaya.
In 1908 Joan Gamper became president of
FC Barcelona for the first time. Gamper took over the presidency as the club was on the verge of folding. Several of the clubs better players had retired and had not been replaced. This soon began to effect the clubs performances both on and off the field. The club had not won anything since the
Championat de Catalunya of 1905 and its finances suffered as a result. He was subsequently club president on five separate occasions (
1908-09, 1910-13, 1917-19, 1921-23 and
1924-25) and spent 25 years at the helm. One of his main achievements was to help Barça acquire their own stadium. Until 1909 the team played at various grounds, none of them owned by the club. Gamper raised funds from local businesses and on March 14 1909, they moved into the
Carrer Industria, a stadium with a capacity of 6,000. He also launched a campaign to recruit more club members and by 1922 the club had over 10,000. This led to the club moving again, this time to
Les Corts. This stadium had an initial capacity of 20,000, later expanded to an impressive 60,000.
Gamper also recruited the legendary player
Paulino Alcántara, the clubs all time top-scorer, and in 1917 appointed
Jack Greenwell as manager. This saw the clubs fortunes begin to improve on the field. During the Gamper era FC Barcelona won eleven
Championat de Catalunya, six
Copa del Rey and four
Coupe de Pyrenées and enjoyed its first
golden age. As well as Alcántara the Barça team under Greenwall also included
Sagibarbá,
Ricardo Zamora,
Josep Samitier,
Félix Sesúmaga and
Franz Platko.
His final presidency ended in controversial circumstances and personal tragedy. On June 24 1925,
FC Barcelona fans jeered the Spanish national anthem and then applauded
God Save The Queen performed by a visiting
British Royal Marine band. The dictatorship of
Primo de Rivera accused Gamper of promoting
Catalan nationalism.
Les Corts was closed for six months and Gamper was expelled from
Spain. He returned to
Switzerland where after period of depression brought on by personal and money problems he committed suicide on July 30 1930.
In 1966 the then
FC Barcelona president,
Enric Llaudet, created the
Joan Gamper Trophy in his honour. This is a pre-season tournament featuring international teams as guests and is traditionally used by the club to unveil the team for the forthcoming season.
The club also permanently retired his club membership number and the city named a street ,
Calle de Joan Gamper in Les Corts district, after him. In 2002 the club marked the 125th anniversary of his birth. In 2004 the
Winterthur Group, a Swiss insurance company with offices in Barcelona since 1910, became sponsors of the FC Barcelona
basketball team, which led to the team featuring the birthplace of Gamper on their shirts and in their name
Winterthur FCB. Perhaps this and the fact that the club developed into a
polideportivo, the very personification of Gamper, is the most fitting tribute to this all-round sportsman. Today Barcelona is
"more than just a football club". It promotes amateur track and field sports and has
rugby and cycling teams. All of these were sports played by Gamper. Barca also has professional basketball, handball and roller hockey teams as well as amateur indoor football, women's football, volleyball, baseball and field hockey teams. Over the years they have even had an ice hockey team and an American football team,
FC Barcelona Dragons.
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FC Barcelona Website
