Centenary Speech of Clube União Micaelense
By Gustavo Moura
Solar da Graça · 13 May 2011 — speech delivered at the centenary celebrations of Clube União Micaelense.
At a birthday celebration as special as the one we mark here today, the first words should be words of greeting to the one whose birthday it is — which I do with great pleasure. And not only to its President, who has honoured me by inviting me to speak at this centenary celebration, but to everyone who has worked, and continues to work, contributing so that Clube União Micaelense could celebrate a century of life. Congratulations to you all.
Having fulfilled that formality, I want to explain why I accepted Dr. Manuel Arruda’s invitation. I have often said that I consider myself a football man. Not because I ever played it seriously — I never did — but because I was born into a family with deep ties to football, and to Clube União Micaelense in particular. I grew up hearing about football and about União Micaelense; I began watching football as a very young child, I don’t even remember when, still at the old and long-vanished Campo do Liceu. For more than twenty years I was a sports writer, first for the weekly “A Ilha”, then for the “Diário dos Açores”, and finally for the “Correio dos Açores”, while simultaneously, for those same twenty years, coordinating sports coverage at what was then “Emissor Regional dos Açores”, today “RDP/Açores – Antena 1”.
Since 1975 — thirty-six years now — I have no longer had direct responsibilities in sports journalism, but to this day I have never stopped following football, always with great interest and enjoyment, though never with real passion, and in recent years with a certain bitterness at seeing regional football head down paths that, in my view, are not the most suitable or appropriate for small clubs like ours. But we’ll return to that question later, even at the risk of introducing a less pleasant subject into a celebration such as the one we’re sharing today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As I was saying, I was born into a family that has always been tied to União Micaelense, among the protagonists of its founding. My father and two of my uncles played together, and one of them, Professor Augusto Moura Júnior, who devoted his entire life to physical education and sport, was on more than one occasion coach of União Micaelense’s football teams. Some close friends of my family, frequent visitors to our home during my childhood and youth, were distinguished leaders of União Micaelense — among them I recall Mr. Horácio Têves, Dr. Raul Benevides, Frederico Cabral, Dr. Carlos Arruda, António da Câmara, and João de Viveiros Bettencourt, and others it would be tedious to list. It was within this circle of family and friendship that I grew up and learned to love União Micaelense and football.
And it was also from them that I learned that sport is one of the most valid and effective means of complementing civic education and preserving both physical and mental health.
First, to educate, in the broadest sense of the word. Then, to compete in keeping with the Olympic motto — faster, higher, stronger. Because it is education, the foundation of all human development, that teaches us to compete with fairness, to lose with dignity, and to be gracious and humble in victory. To many of you listening, these words may sound like an outdated sentimentality, an echo of times long past. But you would be mistaken. They remain as relevant as ever, and thankfully they endure through all the changes we have seen turn sport into a commercial spectacle, entangled with substantial financial interests of every kind. But in its purest essence, sport still has as its goal the pursuit of triumph, whether personal or collective. What has changed are the paths taken to get there — and, in my opinion, they have created a promiscuity that is deeply damaging to the true meaning of sport.
And it is against that promiscuity that I believe it is important to fight, so that amateur sport — practised solely to improve physical and mental health and for the pleasure of playing and competing — is not contaminated by interests that corrupt its intrinsic capacity to educate, to shape conscious citizens within a fairer and more fraternal society, which sport, in all its many forms, carries within it.
Sport as an instrument of civic education and health promotion, and sport as spectacle, capable of galvanising crowds along with the whole entourage of interests that structure it, should walk side by side — but clearly apart. Each fulfilling its own role, but with clearly defined boundaries.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I hope you will understand this reflection of mine, on this day of celebration, the centenary of Clube União Micaelense. A century of effort to keep a sports collective active demanded, of many generations of committed leaders, members, and players, not only effort but also great dedication — deserving of our recognition and praise. And, in my view, they also deserve that in remembering them, we face reality honestly and do not forget the spirit with which they founded the club we celebrate today.
Times have changed. But fundamental values never change, and they endure no matter how profound the changes imposed by the passage of time and its circumstances. And so it has been with Clube União Micaelense, today an eclectic collective, bringing together hundreds of players, some of whom carry the name of the Azores on their shirts across our country, in a work of promotion whose value grows with every degree of merit achieved.
Sports clubs also carry, with real responsibility, a social function beyond simply promoting the practice of sport — one that should not be underestimated. And this function was performed in a particular way between the 1920s and the 1960s, when football matches between the islands of the Azores were, practically, the only form of exchange between Azoreans.
In this area, Clube União Micaelense played an important role, with frequent trips to Faial and Terceira for the now-defunct Azores Qualifying Tournament for the Taça de Portugal, held until the early 1970s — the only competition of a truly Azorean character at the time. These trips came with festive receptions, complete with marching bands and welcome ceremonies attended by the island’s leading authorities, along with other celebrations that never lacked repeated declarations of friendship between Azoreans — friendship that, in the heat of the games, was not always so well observed. And all of this — this whole celebration of football which, from the 1950s onward, extended to roller hockey as well — took place in Horta just as it did in Angra do Heroísmo and here in Ponta Delgada. Once the Azorean winner was decided, it faced Madeira’s representative in a play-off, most often Marítimo do Funchal, in a fellowship that laid the foundation for the Azores–Madeira Friendship Group, driven by Silva Júnior and Mota de Vasconcelos, both long since passed, as was the association itself — founded with the best of intentions, but with little activity and a short life.
And it was precisely one of these Azores Qualifying Tournaments for the Taça de Portugal that gave Clube União Micaelense, whose centenary we celebrate today, the most important triumph in the history of its main football team. It was in the 1961/1962 season that Clube União Micaelense won, in succession, the district tournament against União Sportiva and Santa Clara, then the Azorean Tournament against Lusitânia and Angústias, and finally eliminated Marítimo da Madeira over two legs played in Ponta Delgada. For the first time, a club from São Miguel represented what were then known as the Adjacent Islands in the Taça de Portugal, before being eliminated by a First Division side, Vitória de Guimarães.
The club’s president at the time was Eng. António Clemente Pereira da Costa Santos, and its coach was the late Henrique Ben David.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I will not attempt to recount the full century-long history of Clube União Micaelense. That would be far too tedious for a celebration such as the one we are living today. But I do not want to leave without recalling some of its founders, and the spirit of service to society that inspired them.
Horácio Têves, Ricardo Montalverne de Sequeira, Aires Mariano da Silva, Jaime Gomes, and Cláudio de Sousa Pereira are named as founders of União Micaelense in a study on football in the Azores compiled by our fellow Azorean Dr. Eduino Neves, a retired secondary school teacher who has long lived in the city of Porto, and to whom I turn in putting together this tribute.
According to the same author, Clube União Micaelense had its first headquarters in the building that once housed the Pensão Central, where it carried out extensive social and sporting activity — activity in which Captain Henrique Galvão distinguished himself, a man who would later become a leading figure of the Estado Novo regime, before turning into one of its fiercest enemies.
Just as it does today, União Micaelense was never limited to football alone, also making its mark in volleyball, gymnastics, and basketball — pursuits that, like everything in life, saw moments of triumph and less fortunate periods, but which, thanks to the perseverance of its leaders and players, never once had their path interrupted, right up to today.
More than recalling the life of Clube União Micaelense, what concerns me today, speaking at this centenary celebration, is an appeal: that regional sport fulfil its social and educational function ever better, with greater effectiveness and a clearer sense of values, and that the Government of the Azores, whose support is irreplaceable, look to and support sport in its educational dimension — especially for the younger generations — opening up the chance to play to ever wider sections of Azorean youth, with a clear division between sport as a vehicle for physical and civic education, and sport as professionalised spectacle, which can serve as a vehicle for promotion, provided it does not contaminate or diminish purely sporting activity.
Only recently, the young players of this club’s football schools acquitted themselves very well in a national-level tournament on the mainland — proof of their worth, and of the need to give them the conditions to develop their abilities, conditions that should not be limited by considerations which, in my view, carry less weight than the goals of a century-old, eclectic collective such as Clube União Micaelense.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Before I close, I would like to leave an appeal to the leaders of Clube União Micaelense and, in a way, to the Government of the Azores as well. The social function of sport is one of the pillars of society, and that brings great responsibility to those in charge of it. Not only through the clubs’ own activities, but also because it involves substantial amounts of public money — money that belongs to all of us, since it comes from the taxes we pay — which only heightens the responsibility of those who manage it.
The need for public, government support for sporting activity is beyond dispute, and essential. But its use must be rigorously overseen. It is not enough to have schools for children and young people. Those schools — and the more of them, the better — need to be run by properly qualified professionals, with their activity properly monitored.
At the founding of Clube União Micaelense, a century ago, there stood a club of young people who simply loved sport — the Esperança. Boys who pooled their money to buy a ball, and each one bought, washed, and kept in order his own kit. Times are different now, but that spirit of love for football and sporting fellowship must not be lost — it must be nurtured, for it is that very spirit which has kept alive, through better and worse moments, over the course of a century, the Clube União Micaelense we celebrate today.
I am fully aware that what I have said here today will not have pleased everyone present. But I would not be at peace with myself had I not said it, for it is what I truly think about sporting activity today in the Autonomous Region of the Azores. Contrary to what some may think, the triumphs of Azorean teams bring me joy. I am glad of their victories. But I believe that more important than those triumphs is maintaining balanced, realistic management of our clubs, so that they may genuinely and authentically serve as instruments for educating our youth, as drivers of their civic and social development, and make rational use of the public funds they receive.
The hundred years of Clube União Micaelense’s life hold many valuable lessons. And if União Micaelense has survived to this day, it is thanks to an immense wealth of dedication, personal sacrifice, and commitment from many hundreds of people, to whom I wish to pay tribute here. I do so with particular emotion, for among them are some of my own family and friends. It is with all of them in mind — from the most modest contributor to the most prominent leaders — that I appeal for a more realistic understanding of sporting activity, as an instrument of social and civic education. That was the spirit, a hundred years ago, in which Clube União Micaelense was founded. May those who come after us continue to honour that spirit.
Having said what I had prepared to share with you today, allow me one final, personal note, prompted by two things: the memory of a friend who has passed, who lived Clube União Micaelense’s story with great enthusiasm, and the satisfaction of seeing the merit of another friend recognised — one who is, thank God, still among us, and whom I had the privilege of having as a colleague during my years in journalism.
I speak of Jorge Nascimento Cabral and João de Brito Zeferino. I need not remind you of their personal and professional qualities, for they are well known to us all.
I only wish to leave, at this celebration of sport, a word of congratulations on the decision of the Government of the Azores to recognise their merits, awarding them the Insígnia Autonómica — without doubt the most prestigious civic honour an Azorean can receive. They have well earned it!
Thank you very much.