Man, let me tell you, when that Copa del Rey draw happened, and I saw UD Barbastro pulled against FC Barcelona, my first thought wasn’t about the game itself. It was about the inevitable garbage historical articles that were going to flood the internet.
I swear, within minutes, every major sports site had something up, claiming to be a “complete history.” But I know how these things go. They just copy each other. They find one maybe-half-right source, translate it badly, and suddenly it’s gospel. They never do the real digging. And that, right there, is where I knew I had to jump in. I couldn’t stand the bad data spreading around.
My goal was simple: build the definitive, bulletproof timeline. Not just scores, but context. When were these encounters? Were they official league/cup games, or just summer friendlies? You’d be surprised how often people mix up a charity match from 1955 with a real competition fixture.
My Practice: Dumping Google and Going Analog
I started where everyone starts, of course. I typed the team names into the search bar. Within 20 minutes, I hit the wall. It was all noise. Site A said they met in 1968. Site B said 1970. Site C mentioned a match, but the date was completely wrong, and the score was suspiciously vague. I realized Google, in English, was useless for this kind of specific, deep Spanish football history.
I had to pivot hard. My practice shifted from quick searches to actual archival research. This meant going native. I started searching only in Spanish, using specific archaic phrases that an English sports journalist wouldn’t think of. Terms like “historial enfrentamientos,” “pretemporada,” and crucially, the names of local Huesca and Barbastro newspapers from the 60s and 70s.
This is where the real grind began. I spent hours translating old, poorly scanned digital newspaper archives. Finding those files alone was a nightmare. Many of them are locked behind strange university libraries or regional government databases. I managed to track down digitized versions of a few regional papers, specifically Diario del Altoaragón, hoping they’d covered the smaller team’s biggest moments.
The Unexpected Gold Mine
I was about ready to throw my laptop across the room, feeling like I was searching for ghosts. Then, late one night, I stumbled across a very niche, very old-school Spanish football forum. Not a Reddit or a Facebook group, but one of those ugly, forum-software sites from 2005 that nobody ever updated. It was dedicated entirely to the history of lower-league Aragon football.
This was the breakthrough.
A user, posting under the name “ElCronista1945,” had actually done the legwork decades ago. He had scanned and uploaded snippets of official match reports from the RFEF (Royal Spanish Football Federation) related to Barbastro’s early history and occasional exhibition matches against big clubs.
My work then became a process of validation. I took the dates and scores posted by “ElCronista1945” and cross-referenced them against the newspaper clippings I had painstakingly found. I had to verify three things for every entry:
- Was the match actually played?
- Was it a professional/official competition (like the Cup), or just a friendly exhibition?
- Were the stated scores and goal scorers accurate?
It sounds easy, but verifying the status of a “Trofeo Amistad” match from 1965 took more time than finding out who won the last Champions League. You find one article that calls it a friendly, another that calls it a regional cup match. I had to rely on the official registration data, which thankfully, ElCronista had provided photos of.
The Final Chronology Build
After about three solid days of digital archaeology, I was finally able to sit down and compile the information. I had debunked at least two widely circulated “historical” encounters that turned out to be canceled matches or purely anecdotal rumors. I confirmed the few official games and listed the confirmed friendlies, making sure to categorize them clearly. I cleaned up the formatting and added notes on the venue and the nature of the competition.
The satisfaction was huge. It wasn’t just about having the list; it was about knowing that every single date, score, and competition type on my final output was verified using primary sources, not copied from some rushed, lazy website trying to get clicks.
This whole practice, honestly, reminded me that sometimes, to get the right answer, you have to ignore the mainstream noise and just get your hands dirty digging through the digital archives. The internet is great, but for real history, you still have to go find the dusty corners yourself. Now, I have the complete guide ready to share, and I know it’s right.