The unknown story of Barça's first black player

Barcelona"I used to work in a publishing house called Linkgua at 45 Muntaner street. I was an editor and proofreader. And one day at the door I meet a lady about 80 years old, Carme Humet Cocinero. And she asks me if I can hug her because she hasn't hugged a black person in 40 years," explains Arsenio Rodríguez Quintana (Havana, 1964). Rodríguez hugged her and asked why she had asked. "She told me that her aunt, Maria Cocinero, had married a black Cuban named Longinos Betancourt who was a doorman in a building in Urquinaona. And she added that the son of this couple had played for Barça. It blew my mind. I knew nothing, and I'm Cuban, black, and a Barça fan," he adds. "Thus began Rodríguez's investigation to publicize the figure of Francesc SiscuBetancourt y Cocinero (1913-1998), the first black player in Barça's history. "Betancourt came to find me. It was a sign. Unfortunately, his family wasn't very interested in remembering Siscu's figureand they threw away many documents. I'm very sorry. So I had to investigate," explains Rodríguez, who has just published Ciscu Betancourt, first black footballer of Barça and the Spanish league, a book to vindicate this player who defended the jersey of a lot of Catalan teams. He debuted at Fort Pienc in the 20s and in 1961 he was still linked to football at Sant Cugat, where he coached. In between, good spells at Barça, Sabadell or Badalona, even scoring a goal against Real Madrid with the blaugrana jersey.

"You read that the first black player in the league was Larbi Ben Barek in 1948 with Atlético de Madrid. Or that the first black player for Barça arrived in the 60s. And Betancourt is not mentioned. Sometimes people say that Barcelonians hadn't seen a black person until Antonio Machín arrived in the city in the 40s, when Betancourt had already been playing for years, then".

But who was Siscu Betancourt? His father was Cuban and his mother was from l’Arboç del Penedès. Born 113 years ago on March 28, 1913 in Barcelona's Eixample, specifically at 46 Ausiàs March street. He scored his first goals in the doorway of the building where he lived, a modernist apartment block known as Casa Antònia Burés. His father had arrived in Catalonia at a very young age and, in fact, a journalist who interviewed Siscu when he was young recalled that L'Instant, a Catalanist newspaper, was read at the Betancourt home. From Fort Pienc, he would move to Gràcia, Badalona, and Sabadell, where he juggled football with a job in a fabric business. He played for Barça from 1941 to 1944, after overcoming some difficult years because he was fined by the Francoist authorities, as during the war he became involved in the professional football union and was part of the board that promoted the organization of the Mediterranean League, a tournament played in the 1937 season, during the conflict."He was a man who loved playing football so much that in the 1930s he even turned down a contract with Barça because they couldn't guarantee him playing every Sunday. So he broke the contract and went to Badalona, where they did let him play," says Arsenio. He arrived at Barça at 29 years old. It was a club that was struggling in the post-war period. And he became very popular with the public, especially for his good humor, laughter, and his flair for spectacular plays. Years later, he would recall in an interview: “I would have paid to play for Barcelona! We were a group of friends and although not all of us were Catalan, everyone there spoke Catalan, even Bravo,” referring to a striker from Ceuta. He played 14 official matches, scoring three goals. But he would score even more goals in friendlies. One of them was in Chamartín against Madrid, in 1943, in a tournament known as "the reconciliation cup." In the previous season, Madrid had beaten Barça 11-1 in the Cup in one of the most controversial matches of all time, leading to the resignation of the Barça president and the breakdown of relations between the clubs. To make peace, this reconciliation cup was organized, which Barça won with a draw in Madrid and a resounding victory at Les Corts.

Later he would play for Constancia de Inca or Girona, among others. Also with the Catalan national team. Once retired, he combined his work in textile factories with managing various teams in the Catalan lower divisions. He also got involved with the Barça Veterans Association, playing many matches. He was a man with a passion for dancing. He used to say it was a matter of his Cuban blood, but he never missed a dance. And he had a great sense of humor. On a train journey, he saw two girls looking at him, fascinated, because they had probably never seen a black person before. "He stood up and told them that if they touched his skin... it wouldn't come off!", explains Rodríguez, who still has one dream to fulfill: that the situation in Cuba can change so he can return to his homeland and tell Barça fans on the island about who SiscuBetancourt was. "Cuba and Catalonia are united. I became a Barça fan in 2001, with Rivaldo's bicycle kick. And I knew nothing about him back then. Over time, I've been researching the connections between Cuba and Catalonia. Many areas of Havana are similar to Barcelona, the walls were torn down in similar years, we have a neighborhood similar to the Eixample... Seeing so many elderly people dancing sardana reminds me of my mother doing Tai Chi in Havana, as we had thousands of Chinese in Cuba who left us this tradition. I've been exploring the connections, like a Barça president born in Cuba, Rafael Llopart. And Betancourt's figure explains it all," he reasons, adding that "the pillars of the Cuban economy today, sugar and tobacco, were the work of Catalans, like Partagás cigars," the work of a businessman from Arenys de Mar. "There's too much talk about the Catalan slave owners, who existed, and too little about the positive things we have in common. We need to talk more about people like Betancourt," he concludes.