FC Barcelona Dragons
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The Barcelona Dragons was an
American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
team that was a part of the
World League of American Football NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...
and later in the resurrected
NFL Europe NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...
. Their home field in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
was the Estadi Olímpic de Montjuic, the 1992 Olympic Stadium, and later the
Mini Estadi Miniestadi (, meaning in English "Mini Stadium"), officially named "Miniestadi", was a football stadium in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The 15,276-seat stadium was situated across from Camp Nou, the home stadium of FC Barcelona. The stadium was ...
. The Dragons were successful on the field, making it to 4
World Bowl The World Bowl was the annual American football championship game of the World League of American Football/NFL Europe. The World Bowl was played each year from 1991 to 2007 (except 1993 and 1994). The game was conceived as the final of the NFL-r ...
s (
1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...
,
1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
,
1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
,
2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
) and winning
World Bowl V World Bowl '97 (also referred to as World Bowl V) was the final game of the 1997 WLAF season in American football. It was the fifth championship game of the World League of American Football (WLAF), and the third since the WLAF adopted a six-team ...
in 1997.


History

The team was made part of the
FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Founded ...
organization in
2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
as the "FC Barcelona Dragons", which saw them move mid-season from the city's Olympic stadium to FC Barcelona's second stadium, the Mini Estadi, with its capacity of 15,276. Despite these efforts, the franchise's fan support decreased and the team began to struggle financially. After the
2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...
season, the Dragons were discontinued and they were replaced in the league by the Cologne Centurions. For the entire duration of the Dragons' history they had only one head coach, "Cowboy"
Jack Bicknell Jack Bicknell (born February 20, 1938) is a retired American football coach, most recently known for his long involvement in NFL Europa and its predecessor, the World League of American Football (WLAF). He served as the head football coach at t ...
. His nickname was translated by his adoptive city to ''El Caballero'' (with its additional connotations of "Knight" or "Gentleman" in
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
). From 1991 to 2002,
Seymour "Red" Kelin Seymour "Red" Kelin (1927 – December 22, 2017) was an American football coach. Football career Some of Kelin's coaching positions included head football coach at Arthur L. Johnson High School in Clark, New Jersey, as well as assistant coaching ...
was responsible for Defensive Coordinating duties. Bicknell and Kelin had been coaching together since their days at
Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...
, where they helped lead the Eagles to a
Cotton Bowl Classic The Cotton Bowl Classic (also known as the Cotton Bowl) is an American college football bowl game that has been held annually in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex since January 1, 1937. The game was originally played at its namesake stadium i ...
victory in 1984. In 2021, an unrelated entity of the same name was founded to participate in the inaugural season of the new
European League of Football The European League of Football (ELF) is a professional sports#American football, professional American football sports league, league. The league (as of the 2023 season) consists of 17 teams located in Germany, Poland, Spain, Austria, Italy, S ...
. This new team has announced the
Estadi Municipal de Reus The Estadi Municipal de Reus, also known as Estadi Camp Nou Municipal, is a multi-use stadium located in Reus, Catalonia, Spain. It is currently used for football matches and home games of the Barcelona Dragons in the European League of Football. ...
as their home field for their participation in this new league.


Season-by-season

The Dragons lost the inaugural
World Bowl The World Bowl was the annual American football championship game of the World League of American Football/NFL Europe. The World Bowl was played each year from 1991 to 2007 (except 1993 and 1994). The game was conceived as the final of the NFL-r ...
21–0 to the
London Monarchs The London Monarchs were a professional American football team in NFL Europe and its predecessor league, the World League of American Football (WLAF). The Monarchs played their final season in 1998 as the England Monarchs. In 1999, they were re ...
in 1991. The game was played at
Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...
in front of more than 60,000 fans. That was to be the first of four World Bowl appearances for the Dragons, with the second bringing their first success in 1997. In an extremely tight group stage that year, the Dragons finished second with a .500 record, and then beat
Rhein Fire Rhein may refer to: Places * Rhine, a major river in Europe (german: Rhein, link=no) * Rhein, a village in the municipality of Morsbach in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany * Rhein (Ostpreussen), a former name of the town Ryn in Poland Ships * SM ...
38–24 in the final. That would prove to be the Dragons' only trophy, but they made it to the World Bowl twice more, losing 38–24 to
Frankfurt Galaxy Two American football franchises have been referred to as the Frankfurt Galaxy: * Frankfurt Galaxy (NFL Europe), active in NFL Europe between 1991 and 2007 * Frankfurt Galaxy (ELF) The Frankfurt Galaxy is an American football team in Frankfurt, ...
in 1999, and 24–17 to
Berlin Thunder The Berlin Thunder were a professional American football team in NFL Europe. History The Thunder came into existence as an expansion team, after the London/England Monarchs franchise shut down operations, prior to the 1999 season. Home games f ...
in 2001. In both years they had finished top of the regular season standings.


Head coaches


External links


The Football Database
{{FC Barcelona NFL Europe (WLAF) teams FC Barcelona 1991 establishments in Spain 2003 disestablishments in Spain Defunct American football teams in Catalonia Sports clubs in Barcelona American football teams established in 1991 American football teams disestablished in 2003