It leads me to write this chronicle, and for the first time in this informative and opinion space, the unfortunate sporting and sociological reality of that which, from an early age, is one of my strongest passions: Portimonense Sporting Clube.
I gained interest in this history of Portuguese football like many others of my generation, at the Estádio do Portimonense, at the hand of my father. I watched, without passing much card, II Division B games. I watched the ascent to the Honor Division and, without my noticing it, the animal stayed, like a tick whose presence does not bother me. Since then I have been following closely the fate of this club and, contrary to what you might think, I have amassed more joys than sadness with this devotion (which saw its apogee in the last division rise to the Premier League, in 2010 ).
But I am the first to say, when faced with Portimonense's lack of sporting success, that we have what we deserve. And what pains me to admit this old maxim applied to the only club that occupies my heart… This is a problem of direct proportionality that we can imagine represented in a graph where the club's success is on one axis and the behavior of the people from Portimo in the other.
How is it that the people of Portimão manage to remain so far removed from the only club that represents them within the four lines? How is it that the already few members of this club remain inert when watching a boat sink in front of their eyes? How is it that the most inhabited city in the western Algarve does not have the capacity to catalyze even 5% of its population to join Portimonense? How are people from Portimão able to give more than €100 per person to go to Lisbon to see a football match (of a team that has nothing to do with its origins) when you can watch 15 matches in Portimão from € 60? I can't find the answer to these questions and it seems that there is no one who wants to, in this city...
But the responsibilities of this inertia cannot fall only on the club's failure or the population's passivity. I see directors of other clubs working hard in a policy of proximity between the club and the people, in order to gather supporters and win over the younger ones (romantic or not, but these are the future). These policies, in addition to being successful, have given clear results. Examples of this are the neighbor Olhanense, the Minho of Braga or Guimarães… Farense himself who, two divisions below 'us', puts more people in the stadium.
In these lands there is parochialism, they say. There is! But there is also a lot of work in order not to drop this parochialism. There is a group of people who struggle because they would rather have the stadium full than the vault full. What the current Directorate of Portimonense has done, nobody takes away from it. But we cannot, therefore, fail to point out the things that he did not do and that he could, without much sacrifice, have done. Lectures in schools with the presence of figures from Portimonense to instill clubism as the Portuguese Language or Mathematics is instilled; give these young people tickets to games in places that are never filled; adjust the value of associativism not only to the world's financial reality but also to the club's sporting situation (the value of quotas and captive seats have not changed since Portimonense went down). So all of a sudden, these are some measures that I remember and that I believe would give almost instantaneous results.
I think everyone will agree that the more people in the stadium, the more motivated the team is, so the good results thereafter would be just a matter of time. Portimonenses, let's wake up from this inertia and exert pressure on the right people for something to be done. Time is pressing and nobody will want to see Portimonense having to hit the bottom and only then react.
We played in the second most important championship in the country and, honestly, I don't think this city deserves such prestige. But where the hell 'walk' the Portimonsians?
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