Albert Serra Guixà

Alberto Serra Guixà (10 October 1870 – 28 July 1912) was a Spanish football pioneer and sports journalist, who is best known for writing and signing the first chronicle of a FC Barcelona match, which appeared on page 7 of La Vanguardia on 9 December 1899. He also wrote and was director of the Los Deportes magazine, but it was in La Vanguardia where Serra exerted his greatest informative display, for almost twenty years, and where he managed to create an outstanding weekly section under the heading "Sports Sheet" in which he became a fervent disseminator of the regulations of football. He is considered "the dean" of sports reporters in Barcelona. At that time, football was a sport practically unknown in the city, so most ignored him, but Serra, a sports lover, decided to give it a try after being convinced by Reeves's enthusiasm and passion.

Serra appears in the oldest photo of a football team in Spain, on 12 March 1893. He can be seen seated in the second row, the first from the left, alongside fellow Catalans Tuñi and Figueras. This entity held the first known football match in the city, which was held at Hippodrome of Can Tunis on 25 December 1892. It remains unclear if he actually played in this match. The club played its first-ever match at the Bonanova on 8 December 1899, and Serra was among the presents as a journalist for La Vanguardia, and thus, on the following day, on 9 December 1899, while its front page commented on the Catalan demands for an economic concert, the page number 7 reported the detailed chronicle of the first match in the history of FC Barcelona. In his chronicle, Serra reports on the triumph of FC Barcelona by 2 to 0, and describes the first lineups of the two teams, the color of the clothes, the name of the referee and the result, and concludes by assuring that "warmly congratulate the Barcelona foot-ball club that opens its sessions with such good auspices".

Personal life Serra married Josefina Bertrán Pedrosa in December 1902, which led him to expand his activities with the management of the family business inherited by his wife, the liquor factory that distilled Aromas de Montserrat, located in Esparreguera. He had four children, Alberto, Federico, Joaquín and José María.

Feeling ill, in the first months of 1912, Serra retired, dying on 28 July due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Serra was barely 41 years old and his loss was much mourned in the pages of the Barcelona press at the time. In addition to his obituary appearing on the cover of La Vanguardia on 29 July 1912, he was remembered for brilliant pens of that time, such as Narciso Masferrer or Ricardo Cabot, both of which also presided over the Catalan Football Federation (in 1913 and 1915 respectively).