The story behind Barcelona’s mysterious first full-time manager

The extent of the British influence involved in the establishment and development of FC Barcelona is not an uncommon tale.

One of the planet’s biggest and most famous football clubs came to being in 1899 courtesy of heavy foreign guidance. Swiss businessman and footballing executive Hans Gamper (later Joan, as he embraced Catalan life) assembled a small group, consisting of Anglo-Spanish footballers William and John Parsons (no relation to this author, unfortunately), that would quickly go on to found what we now recognise as a footballing institute.

Over a decade later, local honours had been accrued as well as Copa del Rey success, but it had become clear to Gamper that Barcelona could grow and emulate the grandiosities of leading football clubs around Europe.

Already boasting influence from Britain – the birthplace of Association Football rules 36 years prior and the world’s footballing leaders at the time – it’s no surprise Gamper turned to England to raise the bar.

The Swiss had already recruited the likes of Alex Steel, formerly of Manchester City and Tottenham, and Billy Lambe, formerly of Brighton, to join the playing staff (Lambe also became player/manager of the club for a short period) but decided to expand the professionalism of the club in 1912 by recruiting its first full-time manager.

In stepped the mysterious Miles Coverdale Stocks Barron, otherwise known as Miles ‘Sidney’ Barron and referred to by Barcelona’s official website as B. Barren.

Whatever his true identity, his historical significance to Barcelona is of gargantuan proportion.

The link between Barron and Barcelona likely came from another of Gamper’s recruits from England, Jack Greenwell, who had previously played under Barca’s first full-time gaffer for West Auckland. Based in the North East of England, the club would go on to attract a lot of fame following the turn of the century courtesy of impressive European escapades under Barron’s reign.

In 1909, West Auckland beat FC Winterthur of Switzerland to lift the inaugural Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, later regarded as the first World Cup, and then retained the title with a 6-1 victory over Juventus in Turin two years later.

West Auckland’s disbandment just a year after that thumping of Juve due to financial turmoil, however, relieved Barron of his duties – allowing Gamper and Barcelona to swoop in.

In the Autumn of 1912, Durham-based Barron – who was a surveyor in the coal industry by trade – travelled to Catalonia to meet Gamper and…