The 6th Fleet and the Globetrotters

On March 1, 1951, workers and citizens of Barcelona defied fear and reprisals by filling the city’s streets at dawn. It was the first general strike after the Civil warthe tram ticket had risen from 0.50 to 0.70 cents but the background of the protest was the harsh living conditions and the economic crisis.

Two months earlier, on January 9, the barges of the 6th Fleet American had discharged before Colon more than 2,500 officers and sailors of the cruiser’Newport News’ and five other ships. The marines, eager for ‘rest’ and fellowship with the local people, filled the Ramblas and the Chinese neighborhood and they paid good dollars in ‘meublés’, restaurants and stores where they bought ‘souvenirs’ of bulls for the family.

“People perceived sailors as kind, respectful and very generous people. The North American Government sent powdered milk, butter and cheddar cheese to schools which allowed schoolchildren to enjoy a more decent breakfast,” he highlights. Ricard Fernández Valenti on the blog’Tram 48′. Two years later the US planted its military bases in the middle of the ‘cold war’ (Rota, Torrejón, Zaragoza) in a ruined and isolated country.

On Escudellers Street and Plaça Reial people began to listen to and dance to ‘rock & roll’. You could also watch informal baseball and basketball games organized by the sailors. It is 75 years since that miracle: that military basketball was the preview of the first visit of the Harlem Globetrotters on July 9 at the newly released Pavilion of Sportlocated between the Gran Via, Llançà and Sepúlveda and later known as the Dog Track.

The euphoria for the inauguration of the venue lasted a week and a track was made for the World of hockey. The Spanish team won the title under the leadership of the coach Juan Antonio Samaranch. The versatile Carlos Brown He was the director of the facility, a journalist in Sports World and architect of bringing the ebony champions to Spain.

The Harlems did not arrive alone. ‘Goose’ Tatum, Marques Heynes, Sweetwater’ Clifton and ‘Pop’ Gates, among other figures in the basket, were accompanied by Jesse Owens, the black hero of the 1936 Berlin Olympics who infuriated Hitler with his four gold medals that were part of the tour as United States ambassador.

Owens gave an athletics lesson to the young Catalan athletes at the stadium in Montjuic. Only a few hundred people attended the great champion’s lesson because the event was not sufficiently publicized. At night, at the exhibition of the Globetrottersthe athlete Alabama He was received at the Pavilion with a thunderous ovation.

MD’s chronicle explains that the ‘show’ between the jugglers of the Harlem and Boston Wrilwinds (47-44) entertained viewers with “serious, precise and technically impeccable basketball” mixed “with ‘gags’ that followed one another at the pace of a comedy film.” The ‘Yankees’ improvised scenes of baseball, American football and the basket of a player riding on the shoulders of another, a ‘sketch’ greatly applauded by the public. “It will hardly be possible to see again, even through the cracks of his hilarious exhibition, a basketball as perfect as the blacks of Abe Sarpenstein “They caught us last night,” this newspaper summarized.

The following year the team born in Illinois returned to the popular Pavilion in Plaza España. Interest focused on the second day when the Spanish team faced the Harlem. The match was played in the American style with four ten-minute halves that were won by the visitors (32-52). The Spanish starting quintet was formed Maneja (Joventut), Dalmau (Montgat), Galíndez (Real Madrid), Hernández (Espanyol) and Ferrando (Montgat). They also played Díaz-Miguel, Brunet, Massaguer, Oller and Kucharski.

In 2021 one of the sons of the legendary Hospitalense player Marcel.lí Drives He wrote in Solobasket some matches from the game that his father had told him. “One was that Hillard began to dribble in a Malabar manner so that the Spaniards would chase him to take the ball from him (…) Marcel.lí caught it and began to dribble it at ground level as the North American had done. He chased him to take it away when the public began to laugh and mock. As my father said ‘he hit me with a club on the arm that still hurt days later.'” The heirs of those jugglers continue to fulfill their appointment.

On a football levelLadislao Kubala and Antoni Ramallets They brought the Barça fan out of trouble by leading the glorious season of ‘Les Cinc Copes’ that season.

He FC Barcelona On June 14, he obtained his thirteenth European Cup handball beating Füchse Berlin (37-34) in Cologne. The team of Carlos Ortega added to the Museum’s showcases the club’s 50th European title, which brings together the sections of men’s soccer (5), women’s (4), basketball (2), handball 13), roller hockey (22) and futsal (4). The history of trophies won by the entity reaches 850 throughout its sporting life, both in international and state tournaments and in missing competitions. The first European Cup was won by the roller hockey team on July 7, 1972 in Lisbon. The inauguration of Palau Blaugranathe commitment to the technician Josep Lorente (almost two decades on the bench) and players like CHercoles, Villacorta, Brasal, Centell, Pons, Riera and Caicedo They made the fans grow and the achievement of the highest European title. He Barça won the final Benfica of Livramento after a 5-2 at home and a seven-goal draw in Portugal.