The legacy of Joaquim Maria Puyal

BarcelonaOn September 5, 1976, Joaquim Maria Puyal made the first broadcast in Catalan of a Barça match on Ràdio Barcelona. It was a Barça - Las Palmas match at the Camp Nou and the 'blaugranes' easily defeated the Canary Islands team 4-0, with two goals from Johan Cruyff, one from Manolo Clares, and one from Juan Carlos Heredia. Seen from today, we can hardly imagine the impact that broadcast in Catalan must have had at that time, even for Catalan speakers. I am sure that many years had to pass before the majority of Catalan speakers became accustomed to hearing their own language in areas that until then had been reserved for Spanish, and that at first more than one person must have turned up their nose or thought that it would be an experiment with no future.

Part of the success of the operation is the result of Puyal's special linguistic sensitivity and communicative talent, as he had to invent a new language, but he was not starting from scratch either. When Puyal said "orsai" (offside) or "hand" (handball), he had the precedent of the Catalan press of the 30s, full of Anglicisms. In fact, in the 20s there was a publication that was called precisely that, Orsai. Its legacy, however, goes much further. I would dare to say that Puyal imposed a style of narration different from that of the networks based in Madrid, less strident and more elegant, surely more contained, which has since become the canon of sports broadcasts on Catalan radio stations. A way of doing things that means we all rightly remember those magical moments when he let out all his emotion ("Urruti, I love you!" or "Pizzi, you're a great guy!") because they broke the norm, and in this way they remained fixed in the collective memory.