Chapter 26 – The Penya Blaugrana Foment Martinenc, founded in 1955

The Penya Blaugrana Foment Martinenc is part of the cultural and leisure association of the same name, in the Clot neighbourhood of Barcelona. It is currently the oldest existing social penya in the city of Barcelona. Luciano Gil y Gil was its first president.

An active social penya

The supporters’ club was founded in 1955. Due to the regime in power at the time, it was registered as Agrupación Azulgrana del Fomento Martinense, and immediately began to carry out activities such as visits to the Camp Nou construction site, coaches every Sunday to the stadium (first to Les Corts and then to the Camp Nou), gatherings, excursions all over Catalonia, conferences, talks, competitions, etc. It even had its own table tennis team. On two occasions, it has made offerings to the Virgin Mary of Montserrat – patron saint of the penya – and has also collaborated, together with the club, in replanting trees around the Monastery of Montserrat. One of its presidents, Miquel García Cucarella, gave the penya an image of the Moreneta which presides over its headquarters and to which a floral offering is made every 27 April.

Today, it continues to be an active penya that organises trips, conferences, round tables, talks and a dinner/talk every last Friday of the month. It also participates in congresses, international meetings and various events, and every year it celebrates its anniversary with a festive meal. Since 2014, it also organises the Literary Contest, a Barça-themed literary short story competition. It should also be noted that in 2017 it was one of the supporters’ clubs that travelled to Burkina Faso and, since then, they have had a penya in Tansega, a village near Ougadogou, which is part of their organisation. They actively participate in all the sportive, cultural and social activities organised by the Federació de Penyes Barcelonistes del Barcelonès Est. On the 60th anniversary of the penya, FC Barcelona gave them the Auditori 1899 and they had the presence of the then first vice-president of FC Barcelona, Jordi Cardoner y Casaus, and the former player Pere Valentí Mora.

Another part of the Clot district

The PB Foment Martinenc is located in the Clot neighbourhood, which belongs to the Sant Martí district. The neighbourhood is known to have existed since the middle ages, when it was known as Clotus Melis (‘The honey pit’, an expression that is still used today), and was one of the richest in the city thanks to the waters of the County Ditch, from the river Besòs, which irrigated the orchards and made the mills work. Legend has it that the bees shared the neighbourhood with the Clotus and the Melis, a pair of giant magicians who since 1996 have been the local “gegants” together with their son, the ‘gegant’ Martí. They even have their own dance that livens up the Local Festivity, which takes place on 11 November, coinciding with the feast day of Saint Martin. In the 19th century, it became an industrial neighbourhood where textile factories and several flour mills were set up. One of them is still preserved, catalogued as a cultural asset of local interest and converted into a cultural centre.

Today, without losing its charm as an old district rooted in the past, El Clot has modernised and become one of the most visited areas by visitors to the city thanks to buildings such as the Torre Glories (also known as Torre Abgar), a 144-metre cylindrical skyscraper; the Hub building, home to the Design Museum; and Els Encants, the city’s most important open-air market. El Clot is a lively neighbourhood that mixes tradition with modernity and where you can enjoy magnificent walks, restaurants and terraces where you can sit and relax, shops and even a shopping centre. The neighbourhood had a historic and very lively penya at Barça matches in the 50s and 60s, as can be seen in the photograph of a match played at the Camp Nou on 17 April 1960, courtesy of J.A. Sáenz Guerrero.