real madrid sun night

[Éanna]

As I've always said (and remeber I have a thesis to back this up)There's no evidence of an official policy favouring Real, but individual referee's political beliefs may occasionally influence their decisions- its hardly Real's fault anyway, who wouldn't take advantage of these things if they could

[Dodge]

Went To barcelona at the weekend and took in Barca v Athletico. Class game. Ronaldinho is a genius.

Watched the other game in a pub afterwards and with five minutes left. All the locals were telling us that Madrid were going to get a penalty soon...

One of our lot speaks spanish and just before the penalty they showed a couple of VIPs. Most of the spanish cabinet were there and the commentator said they they would be upset if Real lost...

[lopez]

Coming in a bit late here, but Sunday was a good result for me as a Depor fan. Never a penalty though and even the rabidly pro- newshirt former fascist rag (the only one still in existence although it never mentioned much politics) MARCA said it was a disgrace. Still think Real will win la liga without the refs' help but look out for Barstadolona coming up on the flank.

Max, was there last March. Brilliant town and much improved. Thought the atmosphere was a bit like Lighbury, considering Depor were their main challengers at the time. But a top stadium no less.

Éanna, is this an official thesis, or just your own two cents? Be interested to read any dissertation on the newshirts from Fat Frank's days.

[Éanna]

Originally posted by lopez
Éanna, is this an official thesis, or just your own two cents? Be interested to read any dissertation on the newshirts from Fat Frank's days.

Oh its an official thesis alright, did it last year as part of my degree. PM me your e-mail address and I'll send it on to you.

My own 2 cents are that Real do get the odd dodgy decision because they are such a big club, same as Bayern, Man Utd etc in their respective countries- I don't buy the story that there's a covert political plot to do Barca or anyone else over- thats sour grapes and nothing else. Real are successful because they have the best players- that was the case in the 50's and its the case now. There are only two clear cases of government interference in the Real-Barca situation- the first was in the 20's when Primo De Rivera was in power, and Real managed to win the second leg of a cup match 11-0 having lost away, after the referee spoke to Barca players about patriotism and the other was in the Di Stefano transfer. Barca are just jealous and looking for someone to blame

[Dodge]

Originally posted by Éanna
Oh its an official thesis alright, did it last year as part of my degree. PM me your e-mail address and I'll send it on to you.

My own 2 cents are that Real do get the odd dodgy decision because they are such a big club, same as Bayern, Man Utd etc in their respective countries- I don't buy the story that there's a covert political plot to do Barca or anyone else over- thats sour grapes and nothing else. Real are successful because they have the best players- that was the case in the 50's and its the case now. There are only two clear cases of government interference in the Real-Barca situation- the first was in the 20's when Primo De Rivera was in power, and Real managed to win the second leg of a cup match 11-0 having lost away, after the referee spoke to Barca players about patriotism and the other was in the Di Stefano transfer. Barca are just jealous and looking for someone to blame

Well in the Barca case thats two too many and its more a case of Madrid as a city getting everything while Catalunya was ****ed on by Franco. Football was the only release for Catalans so blaming Franco for Barca not being as succesful was their way of saying **** you to madrid's central government.

Oh yeah and Di Stefano...

[lopez]

Originally posted by Éanna
Oh its an official thesis alright, did it last year as part of my degree. PM me your e-mail address and I'll send it on to you.

Cheers. Will do. BTW, were you the chap previously based in Alcala de Henares?

Originally posted by Dodge
Well in the Barca case thats two too many and its more a case of Madrid as a city getting everything while Catalunya was ****ed on by Franco. Football was the only release for Catalans so blaming Franco for Barca not being as succesful was their way of saying **** you to madrid's central government.

Oh yeah and Di Stefano...

Dodge, be careful that you don't buy into the old Barstadolona 'mes que um club' persecution complex. It's mostly cojones.

1. There were many Catalans that supported fat Frank (proportionally as many as in Madrid) as witnessed by the much cheering on the streets when the nationalists entered town in 1938.

2. Madrid, the so-called epicentre of falangism, was the last city to fall in the Spanish Civil War, much credit going to that to the internal fighting between the radical left and Stalinists (this was the inspiration for George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984). The phrase 'No Pasaran' was coined not exclusively for Madrid, but became chiefly associated with it. True, Real will be forever tainted by association (mostly not of its own soliciting) - hence my nickname of the 'newshirts' after the Falangist anthem 'Cara al Sol' and the name given to the post SCW membership of the revamped Falangist Party (combining the radicalism and anti-monarchism of Falangism with the reactionary pro-authoritarian monarchism of the Carlists ) known simply as El Movimiento. But it's hardly fair to taint the whole city, seeing that for most of the post-dictatorship era, it has had a socialist mayor.

3. Fat Frank, to my eternal shame was a Galician. You'd think he would have put this part of Spain near the top of his list, especially as it was 'loyal' to him in the SCW. WRONG! He was a c*nt to the whole country with the exception to a few sycophants and to a lesser degree, the falangist party members. Oh he was quite nice to the Basque province of Navarra too. It's just that the other Basques and Catalans seem to think it was they that only got the brunt of it as some racial campaign by the fat one.

4. What would have stopped Fat Frank pinning all Spain's hopes on Barcelona had they got DiStefano (as he did with Real) seeing the club during the Fat Frank era was run by falangistas? As for it being one of the few clubs in Spain without the 'Real' suffix, so what? Fat Frank had nothing but contempt for the heir to the throne (the present one's late father) and continued the use of the Spanish national anthem (The Royal march) as an affront to royal protocol by insisting it be played whenever he walked into a room, as if he was the monarch. His decision to enlist JC as his heir (him actually getting the post was not even that certain until after Fat Frank had lost his marbles in the early seventies) was to hold together two vital arms of his support: The constitutional monarchist supporters of the Bourbons and the good, old, RC church.

[Dodge]

Lopez I've read a bit about Spanish history, no just football, and I stand by what I said. Of course Barca love to play up their role in Catalan nationalism but when the language was banned, the only place for Catalans to show their beliefs was the Nou Camp. I never said all people in Barcelona believe in a free Catalunya, just that under Franco those who did showed it at the Nou Camp.

[lopez]

Originally posted by Dodge
Lopez I've read a bit about Spanish history, no just football, and I stand by what I said. Of course Barca love to play up their role in Catalan nationalism but when the language was banned, the only place for Catalans to show their beliefs was the Nou Camp. I never said all people in Barcelona believe in a free Catalunya, just that under Franco those who did showed it at the Nou Camp.

I'm not sure if the language was ever banned. Certainly all official use of Basque, Catalan and Galician was stopped: for instance in Schools. This led to the situation, in my mother's case, where her first language is Galician of which she is illiterate, while literate in her second language Spanish of which there are many words she still doesn't know. The post Franco era threw up the task for the Generalitat of educating the written language to a population fully conversant in Catalan. However during the brief 'apertura' (opening) of the mid sixties, there was a relaxation on the publication of literature in Catalan and Galician (which I remember seeing myself in La Coruna) and probably Basque too. Certainly the British were far more successful in destroying the language in Ireland than fat Frank ever was in Spain.

Football - not exclusively as a theatre crowd once started singing the Catalan Anthem when fat Frank turned up one night late during his final days - was more a vehicle to show distate for the regime, through safety in numbers. But this was equally feared in Madrid. One of the factors that made fat Frank demand the calling off of the European Nations Cup match with the USSR in 1960 was his belief that a crowd in Madrid would sing the 'Internationale' throughout the game.