BARCA BIRTHDAY! Rugby Crosby!!

Joan Gamper laid the foundation of FC Barcelona.

On 22 October 1899, Joan Gamper placed an advertisement in Los Deportes declaring his wish to form a football club; a positive response resulted in a meeting at the Gimnasio Solé on 29 November 1899. Eleven players attended: Walter Wild (the first director of the club), Luis de Osso, Bartomeu Terradas, Otto Kunzle, Otto Maeir, Enric Ducal, Pier Cabot, Josep Llobet, John Parsons and William Parsons (a family, of English origins, that settled in Barcelona in 1870, where Parsons was born on 14 April 1875). As a result, Football Club Barcelona was born. The blue and red colours of the shirt were first worn in a match against Hispania in 1900. The prevailing Catalonia theory, endorsed by the club, is that the colours were taken from the rugby team of Merchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby. The school was attended by brothers Arthur and Ernest Witty, two Anglo-Spanish players heavily involved in Barça's formative years. SEE HISTORY BELOW.

FC Barcelona quickly emerged as one of the leading clubs in Spain, competing in the Campeonat de Catalona and the Cope del Rey. In 1902, the club won its first trophy, the Cope Magaya in 1901-2, and also played in the first Cope del Rey Final, losing 2–1 to Bizcaya.

The more plausible link which is confirmed on the official Barcelona website is that Barcelona’s colours were adopted from Merchant Taylor’s School of Crosby. Both the Witty brothers had attended the school and it was where they had got their love of sport from. As the team needed a football strip to play, it became quite obvious to Arthur Witty to look back home and to the playing fields of Merchant Taylors. As he still had contacts with his old alumni, Arthur Witty was able to persuade his old school to donate some old rugby kits, plus goals, and balls to help set up the fledging club. The colours of Merchant Taylor’s shirts were blue and maroon half’s later to become stripes for Barcelona. It was these distinct colours that made Barcelona famous and links the Catalan giants to a public school in Crosby. It is something that has been accepted by the historians of FC Barcelona. For the Witty brothers and Hans Gamper, the colours of their new fledgling team would have been inconsequently. The main issue was to get enough shirts for the team and if a job lot from Witty’s former school Merchant Taylor’s was available then it would do splendidly. As the years go by and history is made, it is not unreasonable to assume that the colours of your club become part of your identity. Hence the reason for finding the link as to why Barcelona play in the Blaugrana. It also shows the influence that British public schools had in introducing the game as we know to the world.