This Monday (9 p.m., M. LaLiga), Espanyol will look for victory number 100 in the First Division at Cornellà-El Prat against one of the revelations of this League, Real Sociedad. He will do it just five days before the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of what was his home for 74 years, the legendary Sarrià stadium. A venue that holds much of the history of the white-and-blue club, but which the city of Barcelona has not been able to honor since its demolition in 1997.
On the land where the stadium was located, there are now the gardens of the Sarrià field, a green area surrounded by homes where the club has long been claiming a memory at the height of that stadium. Over the course of the last decade, Barcelona City Council has installed up to three reminders, two plaques and an information sheet, specifying that that area had been Espanyol’s sports headquarters. Tributes which, apart from being considered completely insufficient by the white-and-blue fans, have been vandalized time and time again by Barça radicals. The last plaque, installed on January 21, didn’t last more than twelve hours before it was stolen and replaced with graffiti. “There is no painting that can stain our history”, claimed Espanyol, which this month has opened an exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of Sarrià at the historic Dipòsit del Rei Martí.
The vandalism with which the various reminders have met contrasts with the respect that, for more than seven decades, the world of football had for a stadium that lived live as Maradona was sent off in the elimination of Argentina from that tournament, or also one of those considered the best match in World Cup history: Italy-Brazil (3-2). Zoff, Gentile or Rossi wrote in Sarrià a part of the national team’s third World title blue. The white-and-blue temple was also one of the venues for the Barcelona 92 Olympic Games.
A white-and-blue fort
Although its construction cost 170,000 pesetas, it was not until the 1948-49 academic year that Espanyol bought the ownership of the stadium, which still belonged to the De la Riva family, for five million pesetas. “It was a time when clubs were starting to build big stadiums. Real Madrid had just inaugurated the new Chamartín, Barça already had Camp Nou in mind and the Metropolitano had already grown. With the purchase of Sarrià, Espanyol increased its potential, because it was able to increase revenues and get a large generation of players that brought it closer to winning the League”, recalls Oriol Pagès, historian and one of the co-authors from the club’s 120 year tribute book. In the 1950s, the demolition of the two farmhouses in the neighborhood, Can Negre and Can Poc Oli, made it possible to expand the initial capacity of the stadium, just over 10,000 spectators, to 44,000 seats. A dimension that allowed it to be a venue respected by the world of football.
The Sarrià stadium opened on February 18, 1923 with Espanyol-Sants (4-1) and saw its last official match, Espanyol-Valencia (3-2), on June 21, 1997 He also saw the first goal scored in the First Division. Josep marked him whistle Unai Emery’s grandfather’s pitch in Espanyol – Real Unió d’Irun (3-2) on February 10, 1929. The white-and-blue club lived there some of the best years in its history: from the three third places in the League in the 1932-33, 1966-67, 1972-73 and 1986-87 seasons to the 1987-88 UEFA Cup, where historic teams such as Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan and Inter de Giovanni Trapattoni. The data confirms that it was a real stronghold for the white-and-blues, as they won 60% of the 933 Primera matches they played there. In Montjuïc, this percentage dropped to 46%, while in Cornellà-El Prat it barely exceeds 41%. Also at scoring level, Espanyol de Sarrià was the most lethal in Sarrià: they scored an average of 1.96 goals per match in Primera, compared to the 1.45 at the Lluís Companys Stadium or the 1.28 at the current RCDE Stadium.
In Sarrià, legends were forged under the posts like Ricardo Zamora and Tommy N’Kono, hierarchical defenders like Argilés and Pochettino, talented midfielders like Solsona and Lauridsen and forwards with goals in their blood like Marañón and Tamudo. “It was a special stadium, with games at five in the afternoon and those typical scores. The fans parked next to where the players did and had a closer deal to us. Football was lived differently, it was very painful to say goodbye to Sarrià because of the unforgettable nights we lived there”, recalled the Cameroonian exporter in an interview with ARA.
“The atmosphere was unrepeatable, the stands were so close to the touchline that you could feel the breath of the fans. Many Barça fans told me that they went to Sarrià to see good football”, adds Àngel pichi Alonso The derbies, in Sarrià, breathed a different colour: Espanyol won 20, the same as Barça. 23 ended in a draw. Of the 24 League derbies that Montjuïc and Cornellà-El Prat have hosted, the white-and-blues have only won two. The last one, in 2007. The RCDE Stadium needs to recover the mystique of the long-lost Sarrià.