SOM L´Espanyol 1.2: A Grand Celebration

One hundred and ten years ago today, an engineering student at the University of Barcelona by the name of Ángel Rodríguez decided to form a club that would be a counterpoint to FC Barcelona which had been formed less than a year previously. Originally known as the Sociedad Española de Football, it was the first club in Spain to be formed exclusively by Spanish fans of the game unlike other clubs which had exclusive memberships for foreigners. It is a historic club. One of the storied clubs in Spain and it is about time we celebrated it.

There is a history to be explored in just tracing the evolution of the club crest. They played originally in yellow kits because a friend of Sr. Rodríguez owned a textile firm and had some material lying around. The original crest was a red circle with a yellow oval bisecting it to go on their original parakeet yellow shirt. When they disbanded, as many clubs did in those early years of woolen kits and handle-bar mustaches, they soon reconstituted under a new name Club Deportivo Español and chose their blue and white stripes with the change reflected in the crest. It was an homage to the colors appearing on the shield of the great Catalan Admiral Roger de Lluria, who sailed the Mediterranean protecting Catalonia's interests in the Middle Ages. In 1912 they accepted royal patronage from King Alfonso XIII and became Real Club Deportivo Español, adding a red ring and the royal crown. In 1931, with the abdication of the King and the Republic's decree to remove royalist symbols, the club adopted the fourth crest and changed their name again to Club Esportiu Espanyol. With the Spanish Civil War, Catalan language and symbols were suppressed so the name reverted to the Castilian form Real Club Deportivo Español and the previous crest. In 1995 the club changed its name to the Catalán version: Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol and therefore this change was also reflected in its crest.

Like many clubs across Europe, Espanyol uses the cross of St. Jordi (St. George) as one of it enduring symbols. Their other identifying symbol is in their nicknames. Obviously Espanyol are the blanc-i-blau in Catalan, blanqui-azules in Castilian or blue-whites in English, but since very early on, the club have been known as the Pericos, Periquitos or Parakeets (Budgies). Now, there are many explanations for this and none are definitive, some say there were flocks of the birds near the original park where they played, or it may have been the original yellow kits that made them look like birds in a flock on the green patch of grass, but there's another interesting story about how the club were once referred to often as the "quatre- gats", there's a very famous bar in Barcelona called "Els Quatre Gats" and the expression "there are 4 cats" was used ironically to refer to Espanyol's very limited fan support even then; it means that when there are four cats around, you're not going to see many people. In cartoons at the time, the club were represented by 4 Black Cats. How did they turn from Cats to Parakeets? Felix the Cat. When the cartoon was brought over and dubbed into Spanish, people remarked how he sounded more like a bird than a cat, so they called him the gat perico. From that, it was a short walk from quatre gats pericos to just pericos. It sounds a bit of a reach, since even then the club were being defined by their rivals, but we have taken to it and turned the symbol as a badge of honor. We are pericos and proud of our mascot Perico.

Some of the greatest players of all time have played in Espanyol kits: Ricardo Zamora, of whom the Zamora goalkeeping trophy is named, spent his most productive years in an Espanyol shirts. Rivals Alfredo DiStefano and Laszlo Kubala, who played for Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, both finished their storied careers in an Espanyol shirt. There is a great sporting history there too. It may not be littered with trophies like other clubs but it is filled as life is with bittersweet memories. There are the four years spent relegated, the Copa Del Rey victories, and the appearances in the UEFA, but nothing hurts like supporting a club that almost was. Progress to a final not once, but twice, once while having a three goal lead coming into the second leg against Bayer Leverkeusen in 1988 and lose not only the lead but also the match, in penalty kicks no-less, and then to repeat the feat nineteen years later against Sevilla in the 2006-2007 final in Glasgow?

It is an easy task to support a club that wins trophies and leagues, where supporters whistle if they don't play attractively let alone convincingly. It is far more difficult to win when the cards are stacked against you financially, socially and institutionally, but infinitely more rewarding when you do. It is easy to hear bigger clubs talk about their heritage and their history, the stories that you learn from looking back through a club's newspaper clippings, but sometimes we forget that more interesting stories sometimes are being shared by supporters of smaller clubs. In this the 110th year of the club, Visca L'Espanyol.