Soccer History | Estadi de Sarria — These Grounds Held a Stadium From 1923 Until 1997

A green plaque stands on a patch of grass in les Tres Torres. In Catalan it says that these grounds held RCD Espanyol's Sarrià stadium from 1923 until 1997. That plaque is most of what is left. The first stone went down on 31 December 1922. Matías Colmenares designed the ground, the club paid 170,000 pesetas, and it opened on 18 February 1923 on a plot known as La Manigua de Can Ràbia. The name came from the road it stood beside, the one linking Barcelona to Sarrià. Ambition outran money almost at once. The projection was 40,000 spectators, the build was scaled back during construction, and capacity only reached 44,000 in the 1970s after decades of adding stands. At the 1982 World Cup, Sarrià took all three second-round Group C matches: Italy against Argentina, Argentina against Brazil, and Brazil against Italy. Then the club ran out of money. Barcelona's authorities wanted a purpose for the Olympic stadium on Montjuïc, Espanyol's debts were mounting, and the socios who resisted the sale lost the argument. The last match came on 21 June 1997, Espanyol 3 Valencia 2. Who scored the last goal at Sarrià is not agreed. The Catalan record names José Cobos; the English one names Iván Campo, a Valencia defender. The disagreement sits in the published sources, and this memory is not going to resolve it. On 20 September 1997 the stadium was brought down with explosives — 78 kilograms by one account, 76 by another. The operation was led by Romà Sanahuja's Grup Sanahuja, which put up 55 per cent of the financing, alongside Argentaria, the club itself, and a construction firm run by Florentino Pérez. Espanyol cleared roughly 60 million euros. Luxury apartments and a small plaza went up on the land, between the Ronda del General Mitre and the Avinguda de Sarrià. Espanyol played at Montjuïc until 2009 and have been at Cornellà-El Prat since. The three images here are the ground intact, the rubble in August 1997, and the plaque that replaced both. Sources: Viquipèdia (ca); Wikipedia; The Stadium Guide; Estadios de España. Cover photo: César López, public domain. Demolition: Mcsmp, CC BY-SA 4.0. Plaque: Pere López, CC BY-SA 3.0. All via Wikimedia Commons.