50 years since winning the league with Johan Cruyff

7 April 1974 is one of the most memorable days in Barça history. It was then that a 4-2 victory at Sporting Gijón with five games to go ended a 14 year spell without a single Liga title. The celebrations at El Molinón are part of club folklore, a difficult game in which the Johan Cruyff inspired team had to fight back from behind and that had been by the Dutchman cheekily saying to the referee Segrelles: "You'd better blow fair and let us win because there's a UEFA delegate watching."

Mummy, we championed!

Rexach put Barça ahead after 35 minutes, but a Ciriaco penalty and another goal from Leal turned things the home side's way before the last quarter of an hour brought a hat- trick from Marcial to win the game 4-2, with a sizeable number of Barça fans having made the trip to Asturias to enjoy the game. Peruvian Hugo “Cholo” Sotil will always be remember for getting straight on the phone to his mother and uttering the famous words "Mummy! We championed!"

Barça boss Marinus Michels fieled the following team that day: Sadurní, Rifé, Torres, De la Cruz, Costas, Juan Carlos, Rexach, Asensi, Cruyff, Sotil (Gallego, min. 80) and Marcial. And that team has had many monickers attached to it, including 'The Philharmonic', The Football Machine' and the 'The Eleven Fair Men'.

Huge celebrations

On 14 May 1974 Plaça Sant Jaume was the scene of the victory celebrations in Barcelona. It was illegal in those days to fly the Catalan flag, but at least 12 senyeras appeared among the crowd, while the players and staff were honoured by mayor Enric Masó. It turns out that the yelloe and red banners had been hidden in a coin ship in C/Ferran. Masó opned his speech in Spanish, but the cheering fans urged him to swicth to Catalan, as Barça president Agustí Montal had done before, and the mayor finally obliged.