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The Sportsmen's Park building in Barcelona was located in the Hall of San Juan, between the Ciudadela Park and the building of the current Palace of Justice.
It was inaugurated in 1906 and replaced the primitive Sportsmen's Club, inaugurated in 1903 on an empty lot, so that the Barcelona bourgeois class had a place within the city where they could play sports.
Its president and promoter Joaquim Salgot, who managed the Sport-Fox-Terrier canine society, heard in meetings with the members of this club (especially those who traveled through Europe) that there was a lack of a place in Barcelona where they could practice sports to support themselves. fit.
The Sportsmen's Club, as expected, was an excuse to have a holiday, especially at meal times, since the main sports practiced were carbine and pistol shooting, bowling, fencing, gymnastics and skating, except for the youngest who practiced athletics and cycling.
The progression of partners had been a success, especially when the members of the commission named H. M. Alfonso XIII honorary president, a title that gave prestige to the society. The king, on a visit to Barcelona, stopped by the club.
The boom in members means that the society must expand its sports sections and must acquire a premises next to Paseo de Pujadas where a Skating-Ring skating rink is installed, which means that, at the end of 1904, it already had 1,367 members at a time. in which an entire FC Barcelona had only 234 members as its official number.
The following year they acquired a plot of land next to theirs that had been left empty and opened a new skating rink measuring 25 x 50 meters, which is used not only for celebrating parties, but also for sports competitions. In February 1905, the venue was the scene of the first roller hockey game held in Catalonia.
But Barcelona never sleeps. And the magazine Los Deportes organized, on Sunday, September 24, 1899, the first automobile race in Spain on a circuit within the Parque de la Ciudadela.
At the sporting event, three cycling tests were carried out, one with devices manufactured by amateurs, one with motorcycles and finally a sixth with automobiles that was more anticipated by the attending public.
The fatigue of members with the practice of sedentary and monotonous sports and the appearance of incipient motor devices, such as motorcycles and cars, were a new incentive for the bourgeoisie, who forgot about the Sportsmen's Club and set their eyes on the Park of the Citadel.
The members began to show their discontent and abandon their participation in the events scheduled by the club. On the other hand, they were excited about the motor sports programming and the holding of continuous competitions.
Some of the partners requested the creation of a management committee to try to keep the entity alive, closing the old skating rink and, in its place, setting up a motorcycle repair and tuning workshop to compete in the races that were held. They took place in the park.
On November 16, 1905, La Vanguardia, on page 3, published a plea from some of the partners. "A managing committee composed of Messrs. Camps, Cañáis, Casadesús, Layrón, Masferrer, Muntañóla, Samsó and Verdaguer was appointed, giving them broad powers to try to save the Sportmen's Club in a short space of time."
After a series of comments about the actions to be carried out, he ended with some words of optimism in the hope that the dissolution would be reversed.
Six days later, La Vanguardia itself published a letter in which they announced a meeting for the cycling section at nine o'clock at night at the premises of the Royal Pigeon Pigeon Society of Barcelona.
Despite the efforts of the management committee to save the Sportsmen's Club, it did not bear fruit, which led to its dissolution in February 1906.
Despite the disappearance of the entity, the facilities were preserved, obsolete spaces were eliminated and new ones were created. Proof of the affection that the old project had aroused was provided by Mundo Deportivo, which, starting in 1906, organized the Sportsmen's Club Motorcycle Cup.
The survival of the venue without an official company to manage it meant that it was reborn from its ashes in 1908, reopening as Sportsmen's Park, which closed its doors in 1924.
With the inauguration of Sportsmen's Park, among other attractions, the Captive Balloon arrived again, an attraction that became famous during the 1888 World's Fair, but that's another story...
