Good Post on 606

Here's a translation from tonight's El Pais newspaper article where the similarities between Manchester and Barcelona are perused. Interesting, sì?


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Tucked away in a quietly fashionable part of Barcelona, there is a part of the Catalan capital that will remain forever Lancashire: unknown to many, the city’s Poblenou district has worn the title of the “Catalan Manchester" since the 19th Century thanks to its history of textile manufacture and industry.
Having lived for three happy, if rainy, years in Manchester and two years in a slightly sunnier Barcelona I was charmed to discover the historical link between the two cities, not the least because I had already decided that Barcelona and Manchester had a lot in common.
Of course, both cities’ textile industries have now largely departed and there’s not a great deal of likeness to be found in weather, geography or architecture. But there remains much to bind the two cities in Trans-European fraternity.
There’s the football, for a start. Both cities are obsessed with the beautiful game and no wonder, as they each host globe-straddling teams, whose success and stylish play are admired the world over.
Neither is a one-team city, of course, but, with due respect to Espanyol and Manchester City, Barcelona FC and Manchester United have historically grabbed the lion’s share of success, headlines and acclaim in their native cities. (In fact even the proudest of Manchester City fans would probably admit that their recent English and European success is something of an anomaly in a history dominated by heroic underachievement).
Music, too, unites the two cities. Both Barcelona and Manchester have strong musical identities and an ever-evolving array of live venues and nightclubs, which play host to up-and-coming musical talent.
And, while Manchester’s musical history of Joy Division, The Smiths, the Happy Mondays et al may prove unmatched by Barcelona on the global stage, the success of acts such as Manu Chao, Ojos de Brujo and, more recently, John Talabot prove that Barcelona can draw on its own well of musical talent.
There are even two Manchester Bars in Barcelona, described rather brilliantly on Foursquare as offering a “soundtrack Manchesteriano", for Catalans who want to drink in the Manchester spirit.
More importantly, perhaps, the two cities have histories of radical politics, from the role of socialists and anarchists in Revolutionary Catalonia during the Civil War, to Manchester’s position as birthplace to influential works from Marx and Engels.
These influences continue to be felt today: Barcelona remains one of the last strongholds of anarchism in Western Europe, while Manchester is a heartland of left-wing politics, dominated by the Labour party in defiance to the more Conservative south.
Underlying this and yet bringing it all together is the independent spirit – one that defies comparison with the national capital – running through the blood of both towns.
In England, London’s influence as a world city is so large that it can throw a shadow over regional capitals. However, Manchester – with due respect to Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield etc – is the English city that seems to defy the influence of London the most. From music to politics, Manchester is frequently a pole apart from London, wielding its own sphere of influence that envies nothing of the capital.
Barcelona, meanwhile, is fiercely independent of Madrid and proud of its own historical role as a global city of trade, which has seen foreigners flock to the city for business and pleasure for hundreds of years. Barcelona, people will tell you, is not the second city in Spain. It is the first city in Catalonia. That’s a sentiment most Mancunians will understand.
In 1845 Richard Ford wrote in his highly influential travel book A Handbook for Travellers in Spain that “Catalonia is the Lancashire of Spain and Barcelona is its Manchester".
His reasons – “Besides being wholesale manufacturers, the Catalans are amongst the best retail tradesmen, innkeepers, and carriers of the Peninsula" - may no longer apply in 2014 (although the bars of Barcelona remain worthy of esteem). But, for me at least, Barcelona and Manchester will forever lie twinned, their similarities written into the fabric of these great European cities, never to be unstitched by time.

Have you been posting on there recently blueboy......

Me? Not been on there for at least 2 years. Always thought it was full of 'i know better'....WUMS and others that go on there for the purpose of creating arguments.

I always check it out to see what posts are on there....there are some good posts by other fans on there, from other teams.

Why do you ask Melton?

Just wondered, that's all. 

I don't think there is enough City posters on there to be many "i know betters"! Or do you mean from other teams?

Meant from other teams Melton.....agree though, seems we have limited contributors on there compared to other teams.....but always good to catch up on what others are saying about us and their own teams....so always worth a peruse day to day.

Still think 606 is all a little 'insular' as in, there are some brilliant posts like the one I copied earlier....but there are too many WUMS and non-relevant replies on there....which lead you to switch off....and TBF, some of the 'old' 606'ers spout the same old same they always did....