While waiting for the ball to roll” – sporting clubs as spaces of counterculture, the case of Estrela da Amadora (1951-1974)

Abstract

This paper aims to stress the role sporting clubs play in the struggle against authoritarian regimes, using as a paradigmatic case study a small football club in the outskirts of Lisbon: Estrela da Amadora. The ties between sports and politics are well established. However, these linkages are usually highlighted resorting to moments and gestures of great dramatic intensity when nonconformist attitudes are publicly and boldly exposed. By turning our attention to the activities conducted by a club during a decade long span we get a clearer notion of the everyday strategies of resistance that were put into place. Estrela’s club house was one of the most important venues for social gatherings in the town. It was home to a library, illegal gambling, and cultural performances, some of them performed by several of the most notable “subversives” of the time. The club’s bulletin was also used to promote debates marginal to any sporting activity, some of them with not-so-subtle political undertones. During the 1950’s, the club’s board was stormed by oppositionists, eager to use it as a platform to “dribble” the constraints imposed by the dictatorship. From raids of the political police to conflicts with the church, these years portray the possibilities that the popularization of sports could open to political association, especially in times of repression. Albeit in some respects an exceptional case, we hope to demonstrate that the study of local clubs can reveal a broader culture of resistance, one that is not confined to
parties or traditional political associations. To surmise, we seek to explore an object that is usually marginalized in historiographical debates, rescuing a set of documental, material, and oral sources of great relevance for the history of everyday resistance to the Portuguese Estado Novo.