The barbaric 'hooligan' destroys the Camp Nou

Seville fluffed up last week to receive 150,000 German or Scottish fans, only 40,000 with tickets.

The fate of the others was to wander the streets at 38 degrees in the shade, drink a lot of beer and watch the game on a giant screen in one of the two

prepared for this purpose.

Other than a few fights on the afternoon of the match, nothing happened.

Four chairs flew, there was a bruise… Nothing more.

To congratulate us.

For those of us who have already walked above the sixth floor of our lives, a shiver had run down our spines with the memory of the day Spain saw the dog face of

It happened at the Camp Nou, where the Cup Winners' Cup final faced Dinamo Moscow and Glasgow Rangers.

Dinamo brought the great Yashin as ambassador and 200 companions, trusted people from the nomenklatura who were not going to take advantage of the trip to escape.

It was not the same case in Scotland, of course, which scattered around the city up to 15,000 fans with their shirts, hats and flags, eager for beer.

All colorful.

At the time it was not usual for fans to wear their team shirts here, if anything the children were given a paper flag.

As for

, they were considered a rare and alien phenomenon.

From time to time there were reports in the press that spoke of the destruction of a train perpetrated by fans somewhere in Great Britain, it was known that the bars near the field were closed on match days... But it sounded as far away as the cyclical floods in China.

The device was reduced to 60

, the policemen of the time, named for the color of their uniform.

Tall, well planted, with their good club, accustomed in that Francoist Spain to having their first order obeyed: (“Dissolve, don't form groups for me”).

Some hint of charge at the University, that was all.

They went to soccer in small numbers, sitting on wooden stools around the field, watching the game.

When seat neighbors raised the tone of the discussion to the category of riot, a couple went up and took them, without further ado.

The Barça did not have fences

There were 60 of those for 15,000 Scots, mostly drunk.

The match was good.

Rangers were leading 3-2 two minutes from time when the referee, Ortiz de Mendivil, called a foul against Rangers and some began to jump onto the field, perhaps to prevent the serve, perhaps thinking that the game was over.

Barça did not have fences, but rather, a more elegant solution, a moat 2 meters deep and another 2 meters wide.

Deterrent, but someone young and daring enough could jump it.

Many achieved it, others were weighed down by the years or the beer and ended up down.

The

found themselves facing a growing avalanche: one against five, one against ten, one against twenty, one against fifty… They pulled viciously, but for every one that fell, three appeared.

The first to get into the fray, the most daring, pulled knives or bicycle chains, their usual equipment for fights;

the new consignments, less prepared in advance, jumped out armed with the seats that they previously tore up or with bottles that they had stolen from the bars of the stadium.

They used the wooden benches in the lower rows to make walkways and cross the moat.

The barbarism lasted two hours.

The cup could not be delivered as planned, but instead was given to Rangers in the changing rooms.

The lawn was razed to the ground (many took pieces as souvenirs), littered with broken glass, dotted with chains and knives.

There were 87 Scotsmen and 20 police officers injured, two deaths from heart attacks were reported, although in the end there was only one, the other was recovered in hospital.

Only ten arrested.

That scared the prudish Spain of the time.

Barça retained, according to UEFA, half of the box office to repair seats, toilets and replant the grass.

UEFA meditated at the request of Dinamo Moscow to give the title to the Russians, who denounced having played intimidated.

The Mayor of Glasgow sent a telegram of excuses to the Mayor of Barcelona.

Foreign Affairs presented a protest to the British Embassy due to the attitude of the fans and the version of the

, which attributed the events to “the brutality of the Francoist police”.

But both the serious English press and that of other countries with special envoys abhorred the attitude of the fans.

came to ask: " What

would have happened if they lost?"

It was May 24, 1972. These days fifty years ago.

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