Bilbao and literature

[Tony C]

Really like the sound of this. Something I would have been very interested in attending had I known it was on. I need to get better connected.

Like the Le Tissier quote included: would have gone down well in Bilbao I would imagine.

https://www.theguardian.com/football...ond-ball-games

[ursus arctos]

Same.

The cultural transformation of both Bilbao and Donostia/San Sebastian in the last 20 years has been quite remarkable.

[Tony C]

Indeed, with Frank Gehry's Guggenheim instrumental in kick starting the process in Bilbao.

[EIM]

I loved Bilbao. It felt like a cooler, grittier, less smug Barcelona.

[Tony C]

When I first went there about twenty years ago it reminded me a little of Manchester. It poured with rain over the full weekend too, appropriately.

[Diable Rouge]

It's a great city. My Dad had wanted to go for a long time - ever since the Guggenheim opened - so we went there for a holiday at the end of last year and took in a tour of the San Mames. We were both so taken with the city and the club that, over a couple of beers after the tour finished, we seriously toyed with the idea of buying season tickets for Athletic Club. All pie in the sky, of course - it would have been an expense neither of us could really have afforded and the hassle of having to fly from Dublin every other weekend would wear you down eventually. But it's a testament to the romantic appeal of the city and the club that we both considered it. The San Mames itself is a beautiful stadium. Ultra-modern, massive, glamorous and even though it's a new construction it still feels steeped in history. The tour was fantastic too. We were the only two Anglophones in a group of about 30 people but the guide still took time out from engaging with everyone else to speak to us in English.

Still don't really like Athletic's cantera or "Basques only" policy, mind. I mean, I get why they do it and in some senses I don't blame them given the history of the region but it has the whack of "He's not a Rangers man" or "He's not Celtic-minded" off it.

That said, the fact that Inaki Williams and Cristian Ganea are pivotal members of the Athletic squad shows that the policy has evolved in a manner that promotes integration, rather than ossifying into an ethnic or racial shibboleth.

[Diable Rouge]

Ah, I'd assumed those players had Basque parentage?

No, just have to be residents.

[ursus arctos]

It is a bit more than just residency.

One needs to be native to the greater Basque Country (including the part in France and Navarre) or have been developed there as a player.

Williams was born in Bilbao; Ganea played for a number of Basque youth teams after his parents had moved from Romania.

This Wiki on the policy is quite detailed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athl...cy?wprov=sfti1

[Bored Of Education]

I love Bilbao and am fond of Athletic (although there are some issues with its Basque only policy). Bilbao feels to me very much like a Northern city - different from the south (and, as I found out later, Barcelona) - in terms of culture, food and especially drinking. This permeates the club and its supporters.

[ingoldale]

Really like the sound of this. Something I would have been very interested in attending had I known it was on. I need to get better connected.

Like the Le Tissier quote included: would have gone down well in Bilbao I would imagine.

https://www.theguardian.com/football...ond-ball-games

I went both years I lived in Bilbao. It was very interesting - they had a wide array of films on at the film part of it - followed by several talks. I attended the one with Ossie Ardiles, for example. It is all free too. Bilbao is a fantastic city as is the Basque Country in general and I had the fantastic please to travel round an awful lot of it doing to of my favourite things watching football and cycling. It is a proper football city, like St. Étienne in France, for example, wherever you go people are talking about Athletic. Having said, that I didn't choose them as my team whilst living there. I wanted to meet people through football and thought a smaller club would facilitate that better so I opted for Santutxu FC, the team in the area of Bilbao where I lived. They played in the regional fourth tier and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I also adopted Barakaldo as a second team whenever they were playing and Santutxu weren't. I made some great friends at both clubs.

I tentatively started a ground guide but it is outdated already due to the construction on Linea 3 on the Bilbao metro but take a look: https://bilbaogroundguide.wordpress.com/

If you do go - pick up a copy of La Cantera Deportiva out Tuesdays and Fridays. It's a local football paper to Bizkaia and the Friday edition will give you all the details of the weekends games if you want to catch some.

[ursus arctos]

Great stuff ingoldale