You can’t always believe what you hear: deconstructing the myth behind the link between Sport Lisboa e Benfica and the Estado Novo Rui Raposo University of Aveiro
1. Introduction In an era were science tries to pinpoint theoretically solid explanations for phenomena with the most transdisciplinary backgrounds imaginable, some of these areas, such as Football, still lack plausible reasoning for the drive, which has pushed them onward for sometimes more than a century. Football, or rather the Game, as it has rightfully been named by millions throughout History and all over the world, has been able to woo the masses in general and baffle academics from, what may appear, potentially unexpected areas of scientific research like, for instance, Desmond Morris with his work on the sociological view on the Soccer Tribe (Morris, 1981). This paper proposes to deconstruct a Portuguese commonly discussed and propagated myth in which the History of the Sport Lisboa e Benfica (SLB) club, one of the major, if not the most recognizable Portuguese club world wide, is closely linked to the Estado Novo, the Portuguese authoritarian regime installed in 1933, in the steps of the national revolution that took place in 1926, and overthrown in 1974. Possibly due to its national and international relevance SLB was, during a certain period in Portuguese History, constantly mentioned as a symbol of some of the ideals used in the Estado Novo propaganda, a link hard to break even in this era of easy access to information. However, valid and traceable facts have enabled this myth to be questioned and have gradually broken down and diminished some of its more fragile lines of reasoning. A review of some of these facts is included in this paper as a contribution to understanding a myth that has little to hold on to..
2. WHY EVEN THINK ABOUT IT? A question pops-up when approaching the topic proposed in this paper. Why should we even think about it? The answer is, however, quite simple and a question in itself. Why not? Why shouldn’t there be a paper about something that is not only an interesting academic issue, but also, a truly vivid topic that has fired up endless discussions over time and across generations of football fans in Portugal? Although Portugal is a relatively small country, with a population of just over 10 million people, football is, for better and for worst, in the blood and breath of many. We have not one, nor two, but three daily newspapers solely dedicated to the Game. Every national television network has at least one debate show in which every game, goal, tackle and yellow card is analysed with such precision that a 90 minute game can go on and on forever in the unsettled minds of a couple of thousand of fans not too pleased with the latest outcomes of their teams. Just to set an example of how football is a national pastime recent share results for most viewed programs clearly show that more than 50% involve football (8/15)1 and two of these lead the list with a share of over 47,9%. This is clearly more important to viewers that fictional programs and interviews with politicians. An interview with our Prime Minister at the time came in clearly behind and close to dropping out of the top 15. Sign of the times probably. But enough said about our passion for the Game, or in some cases obsession if you prefer. The fact is that any football related topic is something that can endure over time without consensus, altered just slightly to fit into the context of the conversation and its participants, and made up of recurrently used facts, which are so because they were heard as so. And here is were the author of this paper found the need for a deeper look into some of the arguments used to link SLB with the Estado Novo. Trying not be too bias on the matter, due to the fact that the author has been a SLB supporter for as long as he can remember, the methodology used to deconstruct the relation still established by some between the club and the regime is simple and direct. For every supposed fact, commonly called upon to establish the link, some credibly documented reasons for rethinking its accuracy and truthfulness will be presented. It is understood that the previously mention consensus will not be attained with the content of the following paragraphs. However, even the most one track minds must always be willing to at least nibble on food for thought and there will be a lot of it throughout this paper. In the end it is all a question of helping to set the records straight and sheading some light on some greyer areas in the History of Portuguese Football.
1 Data collected from a Grupo Marketest Study - http://www.marktest.com/wap/a/n/id~175a.aspx (viewed 05/04/2011)
3. SO WHERE DO WE BEGIN? There is no straightforward way to start tackling, or even list in order of importance, the various stories that have endured the supposed link between SLB and the Estado Novo. In the end the choice of stories mentioned was conducted according to some overall favourites associated with dates, sporting figures, places and people. .
3.1 A winding road towards the light, Stadium of Light that is.
For a club that was supposed to be the pride and joy of the regime, the time and effort it took to have a proper football field would probably lead you believe that SLB was not as fortunate as some may say. Until reaching its current location the SLB Club played in the following locations: Terras do Desembargador; Campo da Feiteira; Campo de Sete Rios; Campo do Benfica; Estádio das Amoreiras; Estádio do Campo Grande; and Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica (Luz)2. After going from location to location, the Club was deprived of possession of the Campo de Benfica in 1923, before the regime, for the construction of a road only built in 90’s (!). It is also worth mentioning the case of the Estádio do Campo Grande, rented out in 1941 from SLB’s arch rival Sporting Clube de Portugal (SCP), originally named Campo 28 de Maio, using the date of the establishment of the dictatorship regime (later on renamed Estado Novo in 1933) as a way to homage it, and after changed to simply Estádio Campo Grande and inaugurated its use by the club on the 5th of October, a date linked to the implementation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910. A date obviously not very well looked upon by the regime. The defying choice of dates would continue with the inauguration of the Estádio da Luz, not the present, but the previous one. It was inaugurated on the 1st of December of 1954 a day, which in Portuguese History marks the Restoration of Independence dated from 1640. The shear symbolism of the date and the concept associated to it was, of course, something that could not be considered as something done to please the regime, although some may not agree with this idea, but rather to perpetuate the use of a date already used previously in more than one SLB related event and as a constant reminder of the club’s will to fight against oppressive forces. On the contrary it is interesting to see that both the Estádio da Antas, belonging to Futebol Clube do Porto (FCP), and Estádio de Alvalade, belonging to SCP, were inaugurated on
2 http://www.slbenfica.pt/Clube/Catedral/estadiosanteriores/estadiosanteriores.asp (viewed 8/2/2010) dates highly linked to the regime, the 28th of May 1952 and the 10th of June 1956. It is even more interesting to see that, in the first case, the inauguration was also used to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the dictatorial regime, while in the second one of the opening speeches is given by a club athlete and in which there is much appraisal of the glory of being Portuguese and of the Portuguese race (Serrado, 2010). Needless to say that, in the case of SLB, the small defying choices of dates, alongside others as the playing of marching music dedicated to the working class at the beginning of the inauguration of the Estádio da Luz, in recognition of the hard labour put in the construction of the stadium by the hands of many of their supporters, led to the stadium being forsaken in terms of matches played by the national squad. It first played in the Estádio da Luz 17 years after it was inaugurated. The curious thing is that the vast majority of the national football squad players in the 60’s were from the SLB squad. A squad that is probably best known for Eusébio and the amount of titles won and that have constantly been attributed to favouring by the regime, an issue that will be looked into in the next couple of paragraphs.
3.2 Estado Novo = More titles won? Not really… Another interesting point, tried to be made by whoever tries to link SLB to the regime, is the suggestion that the club’s football team won numerous titles before the 1974 revolution due to the fact that it was favoured in determent of the remaining 2 major clubs, SCP and FCP. If this were so then you would expect to find a clear dominance within the list of official titles played for before 1974. Well, not really. If we try to establish a period of time in which the Estado Novo played a more harsh and pace setting role in Portuguese life, the period between 1934 and 1959, for in the early 60’s student movements that questioned the regime, the colonial war and several other pressing issues started to set the regime on the right track for being overthrown, there was no trace of a Benfica football supremacy. During the 1934-1959 period 25 national championships were played and SLB does not stand out within the list of champions. SCP won 10 titles, SLB won 9 titles, FCP won 5 titles and the remaining title goes to Futebol Clube “Os Belenenses”. During the following decade SLB dominates on a national level with 7 titles but is also able to keep this high-level performance internationally with 2 European Champions Cups wins in 5 finals reached. This congruent performance, both at a national and international level, leaves little if not any room for doubt regarding the true value of the football team and its regime non-dependent success. If looked further on in time a possible link with the regime would land them a fascist label sure to draw them away from victories after the 1974 revolution. The three successive championships won in 1975, 76 and 77 prove this theory as wrong as does the list of people associated with the club’s History both as staff and as supporters not afraid to speak their mind during dangerous times.
3.3 All in favour raise your hand
Choose a regime, any regime, and one of the first things you will find is the strong recommendation, communicated and carried out in numerous ways, of keeping your opinion to yourself. Who ever does not abide to this will probably have a hard time keeping healthy, free or even alive. With this said it is easy to understand that having outspoken people linked with the club will only originate uncomfortable situations for both person and club. In this field SLB has a long list of staff members, including presidents, and supporters from every level of society that were, at one point or another, subjected to regime control. There are numerous cases of all sorts of people pursued through one of the regimes political Police (Ribeiro, 1995): PIDE (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado 1945 – 1969); PVDE (Polícia de Vigilância e Defesa do Estado 1933-1945); and, in the case of SLB, to mention Manuel da Conceição Afonso, Félix Bermudes, Brigadier Tamagnini Barbosa and Capitain Júlio Ribeiro da Costa is but to name a few of those who were actively related with the SLB club history. Despite this close surveillance over the clubs members there are interesting cases in which democracy found its way into simple gestures such as voting by show of hands during the general assemblies and the club elections. In a pre-1974 revolution era such a display of freedom of thought was not well looked upon and is easily understood why.
The issue of censure has always played an important role in the life of the club and is responsible for major changes such as the replacement of the original official anthem - Avante Benfica - by the one still currently used – Ser Benfiquista. The expression Avante is still, to these days associated with the communist party and ideology in Portugal. For example the Portuguese communist party’s newspaper and annual politically driven festival is called Avante and the inclusion of the word in the title and first verse of the refrain was enough for the regime to censure the song. The songs lyrics was written by the already mentioned Félix Bermudes as a favour asked by Cosme Damião, one of the founders of the club.
The anthem was not a singled out example of how censure, and the choosing of words, established some important trademarks for the club. The aversion, felt by the regime, towards any positive information related with communism lead to the point in where the words equipa vermelha, the red team, was not used in media and instead was replaced by equipa encarnada, a synonym for red. The regime could not bear the idea of in taking any positive news about the Reds.
3.3 Was there really such as thing as the 3 F’s?
Another common idea thrown around is that the major Portuguese values during the Estado Novo’s where based on 3 F’s: Fado, a traditional Portuguese music genre; Fatima, the location in Portugal where a supposed catholic miracle took place and which plays a very important role in the national religious scene; and football, the national beloved sport. When looked at in a very superficial manner one may admit that the three do, to a certain extent, play a centre stage role in Portugal for Fado is one of our most known immaterial cultural heritage assets, Fatima does play a major role in catholic religion with one of the most visited sanctuaries in Europe, and football does make the common Portuguese both rejoice and loose his temper in a split second. However, if look at from a closer, and more critical point of view, one may see that all of them where not adopted at first or at all by the regime (Serrado, 2010). In this paper our concern sets its focus on football and, for that reason the remaining two will not be discussed. In spite of this, reading about the work developed by António Ferro (Alves, 2007) in relation to Portuguese activities linked to show business, journalism, tourism, and every culture related activity in general, clearly sets that Fado was not the only cultural value thought about and promoted and the Fatima miracle, and all its religious background and intrinsic issues, was never dealt with by the regime in an easy and nurturing manner from the start. Football, nonetheless seems like a given for everyone is supposed to love it. Well here is where this F turns into False. Despite all the fuss about football and the importance of the game, the fact is that the sport was not considered worthy of a ultra-conservative and traditionalist dictatorship which preferred to base itself on values closer to God, Country, Family, Authority and Labour. Fernando Rosas (Rosas, 2001) takes these values to a further level by describing the ideological myths founders of the Estado Novo. Football only became a professional sport during the 50’ and this only came as an inevitable decision due to the nation wide impact of the game and widespread of professionalised football all over Europe and Latin America. Although it may be true that football did draw some attention from the regime as a mean for it’s propaganda (Serrado, 2009), it is also true that on several occasions football did exactly the contrary such as in the Cup final in 1969. Student rally’s, organized mostly by students from the Universidade de Coimbra, which supported the football team that belonged to the Associação Académica de Coimbra, used the Cup final as a mean to demonstrate their disapproval of national higher education and research guidelines and agonizing marasmus established by the regime. The regime did not take to this lightly and did not anyone on its behalf to attend the final and forbid the broadcast of the game on national television.
Final remarks
To its true extent the theme approach within this paper may not be considered a myth for it does not encompass some of its main characteristics or is includable within the outlines of what Cohen (Cohen, 1969) refers to as the main types of theories of myth. It does, however, establish some common ground with what Cohen refers to as the possibility “that myths exist in order to ensure that certain day-dreams are collectively recognized” (Cohen, 1969: 341). Categorizing the theme and some of the stories within it as a collective day-dream is taking it to an extreme, but the fact is that those who state that the Estado-Novo link is true rarely, if not ever, take the time to deconstruct each story and contrast it to facts and figures, they basically accept it as a fact itself. The use of the Internet and its world of possibilities, in terms of information access, has enabled some of the stories to find their way into not only a textual deconstruction and explanation, but also more in-depth analysis through the use visual aids such as photographs, audio and videos and in numerous projects related with the digital preservation of historical documents owned not only by museums, archives and libraries, but also by private collectors. This access to information and its web like correlation, something dread by the authoritarian state mentioned in this paper, has enabled the constant surfacing of additional facts and figures, which go beyond the commonly known and mentioned. The democratization of the Internet, and the potential presented by user-friendly tools within the dynamics of a participative culture, has promoted individual storytelling, spanning across generations and geographical distances and will, undoubtedly, establish some interesting experiences in which giving voice to the collective memory may help understand how myths are perceived and perpetuated. The relation between SLB and the Estado novo is just one of the many stories that has used the Internet as a mean to deconstruct and debate its true essence and by doing so enabling, not a ground breaking view on a vital subject, but at least the understanding that, in this case, you can’t always believe what you hear.
Bibliography
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