Barcelona Bears 1 Franco's Fascists 0 - A fine article from a few years back

MrStruth

Well-Known Member
http://travelblog.dailymail.co.uk/2...ism-tourism-can-do-wonders-for-democracy.html


By Frank Barrett, Travel Editor, The Mail on Sunday

In 1972 it has been suggested that it was supporters of Rangers Football Club who helped release dictator General Franco’s grip on power.

The defining moment was a confrontation with the local constabulary that became known as the Battle of Barcelona.

The pitched battle followed a ground invasion in the dying moments of the Glasgow club’s 3-2 win over Moscow Dynamo in the final of the European Cup Winners Cup competition.

In Franco’s fascist state the Spanish police were all-powerful, they ruled with a rod of iron.

Well they did until Rangers fans turned up and blithely stepped over them to rush the pitch.

The locals were not surprised that the police came back with a very heavy handed response – what amazed them was that anyone would dare to start fighting them in the first place.

Just as the night marchers in Leipzig signalled the start of the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the Nou Camp riot showed the Spanish that they didn’t have to put with Franco.

By the time that Franco died three years later he had long been a busted flush.

http://travelblog.dailymail.co.uk/2...ism-tourism-can-do-wonders-for-democracy.html
 
The Man U fans ran from the Streford end to the Scoreboard end they were met with a deluge of bottles they tried to run but the Rangers from the 2 enclosures at the both sides ran onto the park and were behind the Mancs. The Rangers fans jumped onto the park at the Scoreboard End this left the Man U fans totally surrounded and the massacre then happened.
 
The problem back in the day was that football hooliganism was beginning to bring a bad press in the UK, and this itself would distort the narrative of what happened in Barcelona.
It also had Willie Waddell caught in its headlights like a rabbit.

Back then, Spain was a nasty brutish dictatorship, with a vicious human rights record, a remnant of fascism left over from the WW2 era.
It was a carbuncle on the face of western Europe, and in truth should have carried a government health warning for travelling football fans making their way to it from western democracies, much as totalitarian Eastern bloc countries did at the time.
Spain's police forces, especially in Catalonia, were little better than occupation troops, and many of them had been shipped in for that purpose from other parts of Spain.
They were deeply resented by local people.

UEFA itself an organisation that mirrored much of this fascist outlook never cared much for the rights of travelling football fans and too often looked away as citizens following the game around the continent were subject to police brutality.
UEFA don't really do human rights unless there is a financial opportunity in it.

At the time Rangers played this match in the Nou Camp, there were precedents for the winning sides supporters to celebrate victory on the pitch.
The invasion of Wembley by thousands of Dutch supporters to hail Ajax's victory over Panathinaikos passed peacefully as the Metropolitan police reacted to the joy with total good sense and care for the safety of those Dutch tourists as one should expect from a civilised host.

Rangers fans were to meet a different type of host, a different level of civility from the local police and experience the sort of brutality that the fine people of Barcelona had been cowed beneath for decades.
However, as the Spanish jackboots descended into the mass of celebrating Rangers supporters, what they found wasn't the reaction they had for so long been used to.
As the batons rained down on the heads of Scots many who had fought to free the rest of Europe from such fascism, the tables were instantly turned upon the police, and men used to the respect of a democratic and free society refused to give ground to bullies and in turn started giving back what they had been expected to meekly absorb.

The result of the battle was a total capitulation from the British press led by the cowards in Scotland.
However, those newspapermen it should be remembered were sports journalists unable to make an intellectual leap that could react with insight into the situation with a political and historical perception, and so the die was cast.
UEFA itself who were anxious as always to keep their hands clean, and who sadly have always indulged the fascism and totalitarian excesses of member states, were only too happy with the reaction of the British press.

Willie Waddell was left with no alternative but to condemn his own support and crawl on his knees to UEFA asking for forgiveness for allowing the Rangers support to be attacked and beaten by political thugs who were the then modern equivalent of the Nazi Brownshirts.
How ironic.

However, the postscript to events was that within a short period of time, the people of Barcelona invited Rangers Football Club back to the city, as Rangers became the first British and to date only Scottish football club ever to be asked to participate in the prestigious Joan Gamper Tournament hosted by Barcelona FC.

There is a lesson here for Rangers supporters.
The current lack of objectivity, fairness and intellectual insightfulness of our sporting press is nothing new.
Indeed they have always been a fairly dim bunch.
 
Wasn't there a foreign journo there who commented that the Rangers fans had trapped the police in a "classic pincer movement" :)

It was a German journalist. The late Glasgow Herald reporter Ian Archer told the story for years. The Scottish sports reporters were grouped together watching the battle as the Rangers supporters gradually got the Guardia Civil pinned behind the goal (that we had scored into in the first half) and surrounded them. Archer said at that point the German journalist ran over to the Scottish reporters in an excited state and shouted, "Do you realise that the Rangers supporters gave just enacted a classic pincer movement"?

I stood in the stands that night and watched it. It is a memory that will never leave me.
 
The problem back in the day was that football hooliganism was beginning to bring a bad press in the UK, and this itself would distort the narrative of what happened in Barcelona.
It also had Willie Waddell caught in its headlights like a rabbit.

Back then, Spain was a nasty brutish dictatorship, with a vicious human rights record, a remnant of fascism left over from the WW2 era.
It was a carbuncle on the face of western Europe, and in truth should have carried a government health warning for travelling football fans making their way to it from western democracies, much as totalitarian Eastern bloc countries did at the time.
Spain's police forces, especially in Catalonia, were little better than occupation troops, and many of them had been shipped in for that purpose from other parts of Spain.
They were deeply resented by local people.

UEFA itself an organisation that mirrored much of this fascist outlook never cared much for the rights of travelling football fans and too often looked away as citizens following the game around the continent were subject to police brutality.
UEFA don't really do human rights unless there is a financial opportunity in it.

At the time Rangers played this match in the Nou Camp, there were precedents for the winning sides supporters to celebrate victory on the pitch.
The invasion of Wembley by thousands of Dutch supporters to hail Ajax's victory over Panathinaikos passed peacefully as the Metropolitan police reacted to the joy with total good sense and care for the safety of those Dutch tourists as one should expect from a civilised host.

Rangers fans were to meet a different type of host, a different level of civility from the local police and experience the sort of brutality that the fine people of Barcelona had been cowed beneath for decades.
However, as the Spanish jackboots descended into the mass of celebrating Rangers supporters, what they found wasn't the reaction they had for so long been used to.
As the batons rained down on the heads of Scots many who had fought to free the rest of Europe from such fascism, the tables were instantly turned upon the police, and men used to the respect of a democratic and free society refused to give ground to bullies and in turn started giving back what they had been expected to meekly absorb.

The result of the battle was a total capitulation from the British press led by the cowards in Scotland.
However, those newspapermen it should be remembered were sports journalists unable to make an intellectual leap that could react with insight into the situation with a political and historical perception, and so the die was cast.
UEFA itself who were anxious as always to keep their hands clean, and who sadly have always indulged the fascism and totalitarian excesses of member states, were only too happy with the reaction of the British press.

Willie Waddell was left with no alternative but to condemn his own support and crawl on his knees to UEFA asking for forgiveness for allowing the Rangers support to be attacked and beaten by political thugs who were the then modern equivalent of the Nazi Brownshirts.
How ironic.

However, the postscript to events was that within a short period of time, the people of Barcelona invited Rangers Football Club back to the city, as Rangers became the first British and to date only Scottish football club ever to be asked to participate in the prestigious Joan Gamper Tournament hosted by Barcelona FC.

There is a lesson here for Rangers supporters.
The current lack of objectivity, fairness and intellectual insightfulness of our sporting press is nothing new.
Indeed they have always been a fairly dim bunch.

A very very good post Bilko, as always.

I'd been to Spain twice before '72 and had seen first hand what Franco's shock police troops were capable of towards their own. That night I really thought the Gestapo were going to open fire, they didn't because the first to open fire would have been in big trouble and they knew it, when the Bears went for them they shit it, big time. We Stayed in Callela for three days after the game and were treated like lords by the locals, the barmen were slipping us free drinks everywhere we went.

Read it lurking Scum, then look to your own shitty support for The Fascists.
 
What is often overlooked is that when celtic won in Lisbon in 67 the celtic fans reacted in exactly the same way as our fans did in 72 by invading the park to celebrate .What was different however was the reaction of the Portuguese and Spanish police , the Portuguese police stood aside and let the celtic support enjoy their moment while the Spanish police reacted in a totally different manner by attacking the Rangers fans who responded by retaliating to the attacks , something that the fascist Spanish police were not prepared for .
So to this day due to the different reactions of the two police forces our support have been branded as hooligans whereas theirs are regarded (by themselves at least and the compliant Scottish mhedia) as jolly craicsters
 
I have always believed there was a political motive behind the police attack, after all as someone said almost all European finals ended in a pitch invasion even the tims when they stole the European Cup so nothing unusual happened. Franco hated Britain for various reasons & for his government to realise that there were 25,000 people "invading" Spain carrying Union Flags must have worried them. My Dad & brother were there and both said when they were making there way back to their hotel the locals were cheering them & giving them the thumbs up sign. The bar in the hotel was giving them free drinks and barman said "Franco's police draw their batons everyone runs away but you ran at them". So different from what the press had to say about it.
 
Franco's henchmen in the Guardia Civil were utterly despised across huge swathes of the country, but especially in the Basque and Catalan regions of Spain, wherein both groups felt that their own particular local customs and language were being subjogated through heavy handed iron fist type dictatorship.

In this context, it was little wonder that the people of Barcelona treated Rangers and our fans with a degree of appreciation and certainly with a great deal of understanding. The people of that city had been no strangers themselves to the thud of Guardia Civil batons connecting with human bone.

I remain proud of the way our fans fought back against a fascist regime's thugs and, if any shame should be felt around the events of that night, then that shame falls upon UEFA and the media with their subsequent reactions to an appalling attack on innocent fans by fascist bullies.
 
Franco's henchmen in the Guardia Civil were utterly despised across huge swathes of the country, but especially in the Basque and Catalan regions of Spain, wherein both groups felt that their own particular local customs and language were being subjogated through heavy handed iron fist type dictatorship.

In this context, it was little wonder that the people of Barcelona treated Rangers and our fans with a degree of appreciation and certainly with a great deal of understanding. The people of that city had been no strangers themselves to the thud of Guardia Civil batons connecting with human bone.

I remain proud of the way our fans fought back against a fascist regime's thugs and, if any shame should be felt around the events of that night, then that shame falls upon UEFA and the media with their subsequent reactions to an appalling attack on innocent fans by fascist bullies.

Get with the Scottish media programme, mate. We " shamed Scotland" that night in Barcelona, apparently. o_O
 
There is a poster on the forum who has Franco as his avator, I wonder if he was at Barcelona would he have helped the fascist police
 
If I recall correctly, I'm sure one of the Fascist Police lost an eye in the battle, and Rangers paid for him and his family to have a holiday in Scotland.
It was a guy from Thornliebank who bottled him, the polis was on his knee with the gun drawn and he got blootered
 
My uncle was there.
His memory is of the fascists attacking the support on the pitch and pushing Gers fans back. The fans regrouped and charged the fascists.
 
Its what I refer to as blue collar justice. In those days our support took crap from no one. Nowadays the attacks are more insidious and cowardly abley encouraged by the mentally challenged mhedia.
 
Always pisses me off when hacks try to paint Bears in a bad light in '72.
We were so bad that we were invited back two years later as the first British side to play in Barcelona's Joan Gamper Trophy.
But surely there is another team in Glasgow who have a cherished relationship with the mighty Barcelona, and surely it is they who would have been the first British club to receive such an honour?

No, and to date still no invite.
Maybe the invite was lost in the post?
 
I have always believed there was a political motive behind the police attack, after all as someone said almost all European finals ended in a pitch invasion even the tims when they stole the European Cup so nothing unusual happened. Franco hated Britain for various reasons & for his government to realise that there were 25,000 people "invading" Spain carrying Union Flags must have worried them. My Dad & brother were there and both said when they were making there way back to their hotel the locals were cheering them & giving them the thumbs up sign. The bar in the hotel was giving them free drinks and barman said "Franco's police draw their batons everyone runs away but you ran at them". So different from what the press had to say about it.
The people of Barcelona were brilliant to us that night, i'll always remember an old lady giving us cold drinks and giving aid to some Rangers fans who were injured by Francos thugs. We can be criticised by many about that night but those who were there know the truth about it all, as would anyone with a modicum of intelligence.
 
Always pisses me off when hacks try to paint Bears in a bad light in '72.
We were so bad that we were invited back two years later as the first British side to play in Barcelona's Joan Gamper Trophy.
Indeed, I had intended posting similar, I believe this tournament still runs pre season.
 
The problem back in the day was that football hooliganism was beginning to bring a bad press in the UK, and this itself would distort the narrative of what happened in Barcelona.
It also had Willie Waddell caught in its headlights like a rabbit.

Back then, Spain was a nasty brutish dictatorship, with a vicious human rights record, a remnant of fascism left over from the WW2 era.
It was a carbuncle on the face of western Europe, and in truth should have carried a government health warning for travelling football fans making their way to it from western democracies, much as totalitarian Eastern bloc countries did at the time.
Spain's police forces, especially in Catalonia, were little better than occupation troops, and many of them had been shipped in for that purpose from other parts of Spain.
They were deeply resented by local people.

UEFA itself an organisation that mirrored much of this fascist outlook never cared much for the rights of travelling football fans and too often looked away as citizens following the game around the continent were subject to police brutality.
UEFA don't really do human rights unless there is a financial opportunity in it.

At the time Rangers played this match in the Nou Camp, there were precedents for the winning sides supporters to celebrate victory on the pitch.
The invasion of Wembley by thousands of Dutch supporters to hail Ajax's victory over Panathinaikos passed peacefully as the Metropolitan police reacted to the joy with total good sense and care for the safety of those Dutch tourists as one should expect from a civilised host.

Rangers fans were to meet a different type of host, a different level of civility from the local police and experience the sort of brutality that the fine people of Barcelona had been cowed beneath for decades.
However, as the Spanish jackboots descended into the mass of celebrating Rangers supporters, what they found wasn't the reaction they had for so long been used to.
As the batons rained down on the heads of Scots many who had fought to free the rest of Europe from such fascism, the tables were instantly turned upon the police, and men used to the respect of a democratic and free society refused to give ground to bullies and in turn started giving back what they had been expected to meekly absorb.

The result of the battle was a total capitulation from the British press led by the cowards in Scotland.
However, those newspapermen it should be remembered were sports journalists unable to make an intellectual leap that could react with insight into the situation with a political and historical perception, and so the die was cast.
UEFA itself who were anxious as always to keep their hands clean, and who sadly have always indulged the fascism and totalitarian excesses of member states, were only too happy with the reaction of the British press.

Willie Waddell was left with no alternative but to condemn his own support and crawl on his knees to UEFA asking for forgiveness for allowing the Rangers support to be attacked and beaten by political thugs who were the then modern equivalent of the Nazi Brownshirts.
How ironic.

However, the postscript to events was that within a short period of time, the people of Barcelona invited Rangers Football Club back to the city, as Rangers became the first British and to date only Scottish football club ever to be asked to participate in the prestigious Joan Gamper Tournament hosted by Barcelona FC.

There is a lesson here for Rangers supporters.
The current lack of objectivity, fairness and intellectual insightfulness of our sporting press is nothing new.
Indeed they have always been a fairly dim bunch.

Bilko. You are one crabbit, cantekerous sod on here.
But you know what, I think I love you!
 
Was showing this thread to a neighbour, he was telling me his father was there on the pitch said it was unbelievable, said the cops were pumped from the start and looked like they were just waiting for an excuse to wade in, in his words from his dad, the bastards shat it when the Bears started fighting back also said more than a few sore ones handed out on both sides, would loved to have been there, not necessarily on the pitch though.
 
It was my 1st time flying when I went over to that game at 15 years of age. That flight , was the 2nd Best Sash Bash, I have ever experienced LOL.
 
It was ugly after the game as the Guardia Civil tried to take revenge.

My Da and Uncle went with a gang of half a dozen from the Kelburne Bar in Paisley and my Unc told me how they got chased through city centre by a mob of Polis; they ran into a bar in the port, where fortunately the US navy in dress whites protected them and fronted up to the Polis to see them off.
 
It was ugly after the game as the Guardia Civil tried to take revenge.

My Da and Uncle went with a gang of half a dozen from the Kelburne Bar in Paisley and my Unc told me how they got chased through city centre by a mob of Polis; they ran into a bar in the port, where fortunately the US navy in dress whites protected them and fronted up to the Polis to see them off.
Some of the anecdotes on this thread are amazing.
There is a story here and it has a disturbing subtext of injustice towards the Rangers support.
Sadly much of it is being lost as the year's pass, and much is unfortunately now second hand.

However, there is a fantastic opportunity for a book in this, and it wouldn't just be a book full of interest from a historical perspective, it may also serve as a testament to an injustice that has been carried unfairly down through the decades where a stark tragic truth was hidden beneath a dishonest myth to serve the interests of others.
 
Don't forget though guys, we ransacked La Sagrada Familia (copyright scumbag Cosgrove) :rolleyes:

It was so bad they haven't finished rebuilding the f ucker yet. :p
 
One of my dad's pals, Rab Miller, told me that when they hung the union flag from their apartment it overlooked a schoolyard and the kids weren't happy. They couldn't figure out why, until a local told them it was Gibraltar and Franco's government was encouraging this hatred.

The other remarkable things is that their mate Jackie Tierney went with them. and wee Jackie was a Tim!

Shows how much things have changed, very similar to Number Eight telling us that many Rangers fans were pleased that Sellik won in 1967 because it reflected well on Scottish football. Unthinkable these days...

Huge upside in terms of unexpected consequences is that my Da brought a guitar back as a souvenir, and my wee bro learned to play in 1974 at primary school. he's now 53 and been playing in various bands all his adult life.
 
I was sitting directly opposite from where most of the fans came on the pitch,the Spanish police came in heavy handed and forced them back probably thinking job done.They clearly didn't expect the Bears to regroup and come back at them and dish out some retribution.
I was just a boy but my abiding memory was getting to shake wee Tam McLeans hand and being brave enough to pat big Greig on the back as they were leaving the pitch.
 
Despite countless statements from Bears who were actually there in Barcelona that night and faced the brutality of Franco's armed henchmen, the Scottish media down the decades has predictably tried to twist and distort that glorious time as another big, bad Rangers tale. That Rangers were personally invited back to the same stadium just 2 years later by Barcelona is never mentioned by the warped scum posing as an impartial media in this country.
 
Glad this thread has been bumped as there was some great stories from then, also seem to remember reading somewhere that roughly round about the time of the game there were some bears spray painting the Berlin Wall, W.A.T.P
 
Was in a bar on Las Ramblas around 1979 wearing my Rangers top and the barman said Glasgow Rangers loco.

I was at the game that night and your mention of Las Ramblas brought back another memory. After the game it was a case of us getting ourselves into the supporters bus park and getting ourselves onto any bus that was going to whichever location we had come from, regardless of whatever bus group had actually brought us. The Guardia Civil had taken an absolute tanking from the Bears inside the stadium, they had called in the Spanish Cavalry to save them (quite literally), they were intent on revenge and it was a case of us getting out of there before guys armed with guns and batons came after us. Our bus headed for Lloret and as it was going down Las Ramblas (which was deserted by this time) I noticed a lone figure wearing a rangers tammy and draped in a huge Ulster flag sauntering down Las Ramblas on his own. While the rest of us were rushing to get out of town, this Bear looked like he was as happy as Larry and not giving a f..k! The memory of it puts a smile on my face and down through the years I've wondered what became of that guy.
 
We stayed in Santa Susanna and I can remember that almost every hotel room had a flag hanging over the verandah. This was the night before the game. Incredible the number of Lion Rampant flags there was. We were Scottish and British then.
 
The fuckers just couldn't comprehend that 25,000 odd bears just wouldn't take the shit that they were used to dishing out.
 
My memories are that we were a little out of order but the Spanish police massively over reacted. I went on the East Rutherglen Supporters Bus (I remember Colin Jacksons Dad was on the bus).
We didn't just invade the pitch at the final whistle, we were on a couple of times before that irc.

Once the battle started at the end I recall it as per other posters. The police were out of order, I was on the second level and police came into the stand to attack us. I was set about by a big Spanish Copper and a couple of handy Bears stepped in to change the odds.

I left the ground drunk with no idea were to go and our bus (to who I had been a stranger 4 days before) passed by 20 yards from me, I didn't see them but they saw me and grabbed me up off the street.

The best bit was the following day when the locals in the village we were in came out to applaud us onto our bus as heroes
 
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