Sport such as national salvation
In a period of great crisis in Portugal, sport arises as a means of 'national salvation'. However, the state ignores the appeals for sporting activity.
The sportive activity, up to the early 1930s, was implemented only in the Liceus, that is, accessible only to a minority, and the conditions for practice were precarious.
HCP [Hóquei Club de Portugal] 40th anniversary (1961)National Sports Museum - IPDJ
More than 100 new clubs
From north to south of the country (including in the Azores and Madeira), were created in the 1920s. Many of them continue to exist.
Emblem of Vitória SC Guimarães (s/d) by Fernando de Lacerda e MeloNational Sports Museum - IPDJ
Unique modality
Most new clubs had football as main and sometimes unique mode, whose popularity was then in full expansion. Some of the clubs, from the center and north of the country, which currently compete in the 1st League, were born in the 1920s.
Carcavelinhos (CFC) (1927) by Jorge BarradasNational Sports Museum - IPDJ
Among the other winners of the Portugal Championship in the 1920s (FC Porto, Sporting, Olhanense, Belenenses and Benfica) was the (now disappeared) Football Club, winner in 1927-28.
Another of the first new clubs in this decade was the Casa Atletico Club (1920), born of former students of the house.
Southern Tagus, all the villages and cities saw at least one club: Évora, Elvas, Barreiro, Cacilhas, Sixal, Setubal, New Sales, Livestock, Amora, Montijo, Alcochete, Odemira, Palmela, Bridge of Sor, Campo Bigger , Reguengos, Paio Pires, Loulé, Tavira, Galega village in Ribatejo...
Some examples among many.
Emblem Sport Clube Lusitânia (SCL) (1922)National Sports Museum - IPDJ
In the Azores,
other clubs were born in this decade: The Sportive Union Club (Ponta Delgada), Sport Club Lusitania, the Sporting Club of Horta, the Capelense Sport Club, the Sporty Club of Santa Clara and the Sport Club Angense.
In Madeira, Clube Futebol Andorinha de Santo António appeared (where Cristiano Ronaldo began his career in the base categories), the May Sport Club and the Futebol Clube do Bom Sucess.
But two other Madeiran clubs, founded in 1910, were high. The National Sport Club, known as the National Madeira inaugurated the first stadium of the archipelago in 1927.
Chrome from the 1st Team of Club SC Marítimo, champion of Portugal. Perestrelos (1926?)National Sports Museum - IPDJ
And the Club Sport Maritime, also founded in 1910, who won the 1925-26 Portugal championship.
There were also several naval clubs,
who joined others, such as the Naval Association of Lisbon (1855), the Naval Club of Lisbon (1892), the Naval Association 1 of May of Figueira da Foz (1893), the Naval Club of Ponta Delgada (1901) Senior Club Povoona (1904), which are among the oldest associations.
Collection of the National Sports Museum
It has about 1300 badges, more than 790 medals and more than 600 gallows, many of which are from sports clubs and federations. Those shown in this exhibition are just a small part of this collection.
PERIODIC SOCIETY PORTUGUESE - Nº 1 (1910)National Sports Museum - IPDJ
A contest, a proposal, a candidate ...
In 1925, the City Hall of Torres Vedras launched a competition for the creation of a Physical Education Institute to teach gymnastics to the students of the Municipal Secondary School and the primary schools ...
Lapel badge of the Physical Education and Sports Association of Torres Vedras (AEFD) (s/d)National Sports Museum - IPDJ
...in line with a movement for physical education that would begin in the last years of the monarchy. To the contest, there was only one candidate, the Association of Physical and Sports Education, founded on April 9, 1925.
Sports associations
Nothing received from governments and survived with sacrifice. If sport could achieve a certain status, this was due to sports clubs and agremiations and not to the state.
Official table of national records: approved until December 31, 1947 (All rights reserved) by Federação Portuguesa de AtletismoNational Sports Museum - IPDJ
Between 1919 and 1934 the regulation and institutionalization of modalities in Portugal was defined, providing for laws, organization, structure and managers. This after a reorganization, which followed the first major world conflict.
«Associativism has been evolving in their forms of organization, functioning and response to the needs of populations, building solutions to the problems that each one alone could solve and replacing many of the social functions of the State which, in each concrete case, did not want, they could not or did not know.» Augusto Flor
A decade, a dozen federations
In the 1920s, no less than 9 sports federations and 2 pre-federative entities saw the light, fruit of the growth of sporty practice and the growing institutionalization of sport in Portugal.
Periodic o Remo. Periodic bulletin of the Portuguese Rowing Federation. - Nº 1, September 1951 (1951)National Sports Museum - IPDJ
Keep visiting
You have finished the visit to the 3rd part of the exposure dedicated to the years 1920. Follow to the next.
Part 1: History and Physical Education
Part 2: Sports Journals
Part 4: Portugal in the Olympic Games
Part 5: Aviação
Exhibition «Years 1920 - Part 3: Associativism»
Original Version - 2022
Curatoria and Contents: National Sports Museum
Sources and excerpts:
"History of Portuguese Football", from Ricardo Serrado
"Collectivities of culture, recreation and sport - a characterization of Confederate Associativism in Portugal", by Simão Cardoso Leitão, Gustavo Pereira, Joaquim Ramos, Alexandre Silva; Preface: Augusto Flor
"Casa Atlético Clube: Athenaeum Casapiano: 1920-1970: Half century of sport, between dreams and storms", from Viriato Camilo
Note: The exhibition was developed based on the selection of museum's estate
