A ghost travels Europe, the ghost of neighborhood football. A football like before, where clubs belong to their partners, it is not necessary A sound weapon against them. A football where entities such as the Esportiu Europe Club can be defined in its statutes as anti -fascist, feminist and contrary to Bullying and homophobia. On Sunday, the Gràcia neighborhood team in Barcelona took the lead of the third group of the second RFEF against Terrassa. But that, that was not a small thing, could be the least. The interesting thing, often, happens in the stands and in the neighborhood.
Many fans have found in the historic popular courts – Europe is one of the founders of the Spanish League – an identity safe from the universe increasingly impersonal and perverted from the football business. To the unassumable fertilizers, to the abuse of the clubs to their partners, to the investment funds, to the ghosts of Super Le To Mecca. It is not the same, of course, and some remain sideways to their usual teams, but others have gradually losing interest in their televised version.
Popular football has grown in recent years illuminated by that romantic lighthouse of eternal hatred of modern football. Also for some myths such as the Red Star Parisino or, above all, St. Pauli, the small Hamburg team that bears the name of his neighborhood and that embodies what a club can do for his community, as they say in St. Pauli, another football is possible (Captain Swing, 2019) Natxo Parra and Carles Viñas. The team, which today militates in the Bundesliga, was the first in Germany to ban the entrance to its stadium to fans of the extreme right and have an openly gay president and militant of the LGTBIQ+cause, theatrical businessman Corny Littmann. Thanks to decisions of this type, usually without great sports results, the club went from an average of 1,600 spectators (1981) to the current 30,400.
The identity phenomenon is also expressed in the revolt of the fans, which it achieved in Germany to impose the model in which the partners must have 51% of the club’s actions. Or in entities such as Football Club United of Manchester, founded by unhappy fans after the purchase of the Manchester United Glazer family. But also other neighborhood phenomena such as Sant Andreu or even Rayo Vallecano, although despite its president Martín Presa: a story so well told in It is not beast to tame, by Ignacio Pato (Altamarea, 2024).
The paradox of this football, like every romantic company, is expressed through its success, in the obligation to obtain more money to comply with the regulations imposed by professional football. The imposition of growing. Europe, for example, crossed that existential dilemma last year, about to climb to First Federation. The RFEF demands grass fields to play in that division. The Nou Srdenya, a embedded court between huge buildings in the upper area of Gràcia and Calle de las Camelias, cannot meet the requirements and the club would be forced to seek refuge in some distant stadium, stripping its partners and the entity and the entity of his umbilical cord with the neighborhood. There was runrun in the stands. In the bar and in the bakery. And a large part of the fans concluded that it was better not to rise to preserve the identity of Europe. This year, it depends on whoever you ask, paints well again. Or also bad.
