Why this blog?

This blog is all about FC Barcelona and the club’s relationship with Catalonia and Catalan identity. It is the main output of a project I have undertaken as part of my final year studies at Newcastle University studying Combined Honours in Spanish and German.

I hope that the content of this blog will be of interest to people who , like me, have a passion for football but that it will also be appreciated as a piece of academic work as, after all, it is being assessed for my degree. This project has enabled me to combine the academic skills that I have acquired during my four years at university and a topic that I am passionate about.

I lived in Barcelona for a few months in 2012 as part of my year abroad for my degree. The idea for my project started from there as I noticed how FC Barcelona was such a key part of the life of the city and the lives of people living there. What was also very obvious to me was that Barcelona is definitely Catalan before being Spanish and I was interested in finding out how FC Barcelona fits into that politically and socially. I was also lucky enough to be living in Barcelona during the last UEFA Euros which was, of course, won by Spain. Again, it was interesting for me to see how despite being in Catalonia (which technically has its own national football team), the support for the Spanish national team was unequivocal. This Catalan support for La Roja was another area I was interested in looking into and how this support has evolved over the years.

Although the project is not a dissertation per se, the amount of research and preparation behind all the projects undertaken by my peers and myself shows the academic value of our work. A sizable amount of reading and research has gone into my project but, I have to say, there are most definitely worse topics to be reading up on! The vast majority of people who I’ve spoken to about my project have been surprised (and some a little bit jealous!) that I have been able to spend hours reading about and researching something that I love. The majority of my research has been taken from academic journals, articles and books. However, given the nature of my project, I have read football blogs, trailed through official football websites and spent hours on youtube. I have also managed to justify it to myself that watching Barça’s matches also counts as valuable research!

I had been warned that the more you research a topic, the less you can enjoy it afterwards. I can safely say though, that after watching Barcelona’s last Champions league match against AC Milan, I’m not enjoying it any less!