UC Memories: 26 November 1957

By: Ian Rose | November 26th, 2007

Before there was such a thing as the UEFA Cup, the second-tier cup competition in Europe was known as the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. It matched up clubs with custom-made city teams like London XI and Frankfurt XI. The very first of these cups was contested between 1955 and 1958, with preliminaries followed by a group stage and straight into semifinals. The first semifinal was between Barcelona and Birmingham City. It had been four years since Barca’s last league championship, and they looked to be fading a little from the heights of the team that had won five trophies in 1952. But they still had Ladislao Kubala, possibly the greatest player to ever wear a Barca jersey, and they remained very dangerous. Their opponents from Birmingham were playing the best football of their club’s history, having reached the club’s only FA Cup final the year before.

The first leg, in Birmingham, was a goal-fest, and finished 4-3 to the English side. The return to Barcelona was a cagier match, with Barca just able to even up the aggregate with a 1-0 win. Under today’s away goals rule, Barca would have won, but there was no such rule in 1957, and so it went to a third match. This playoff match was played fifty years ago today, on 26 November 1957. Barcelona took the match 2-1, and advanced to the final, where they would crush the London XI squad 8-2, including a 6-0 win in Barcelona that remains one of the club’s greatest European victories. This playoff would be the first of several long runs for Birmingham City in the ICFC. They would make the final in 1960 and 1961, losing to Barcelona again and Roma, respectively. Barcelona would win a total of four Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, including the last one in 1971. The next year, the tournament’s rules were altered and name changed to create the tournament we all ~~make fun of~~know and love as the UEFA Cup.