Visit the home of Alvalade history and learn more about more than a century countless trophies
The Sporting Museum is divided into eight areas. The first finds its roots in the very phrase that first breathed life into Sporting Clube de Portugal. In 1906, the year that the club was founded, José Alvalade uttered the infamous phrase “We want Sporting to be a big Club, as big as the biggest in Europe”.
This is the point in which the Sporting Museum. Since its foundation, the Club has participated in a staggering 32 different Sports disciplines. In this area you will find a small description of how the birth of each of these disciplines came about in Sporting, as well as presentations of the most important national and international titles that each discipline has won. It is here that you can bear witness to the items that have left the glorious marks on Sporting’s history, items such as the bicycle of Joaquim Agostinho, the hockey stick of António Livramento and, among many other items, the bow of Armindo Santos: that dates back all the way to 1946.
After the first encounter with Sporting’s vast annals of history, move on to the second area: “The Foundation”. It is here that you will encounter the founders of Sporting Clube de Portugal, an encounter that gives importance to the affirmation made by José Holtreman Roquette (José Alvalade) that: “I am going to have with me my grandfather and he will give me the money to make another club”. In this area you will find a small biography of the Viscount of Alvalade and José Alvalade, Accompanied by two bronze sculptures as well as other objects attributed to the founders of the club.
The third area is dedicated to the first years of the Club. In this area you will encounter the first interactive activities in the Museum, where new technologies are utilised in order to make comparisons between the past and the present. An interactive light panel will help you observe all of the pitches/stadia of Sporting, which also often acted as the headquarters of the Club. These sites are also presented with a map of the city, in a presentation that will quickly have you lost in time. It is worth taking a few minutes of your time to study how the story of Sporting began and how it has evolved through time into the great club that Sporting Clube de Portugal is today.
Aside from a packed trophy cabinet, the next area also hosts interactive displays that offer answers to questions posed on various placards throughout the area. You can also touch to the Stars of Sporting that are hanging throughout the corridors of this area: Stars proudly placed in honour of the athletes that earned them.
In the fifth area of the Museum you can study a more in depth history of the Club. It is throughout this section that you can get to know more about the events that catapulted Sporting forward towards national and international success that first started in the thirties.
You will have the opportunity to observe a game of football between Portugal and Spain, held in 1947, that would become the first Portuguese footballing victory over Spain, the shirt of the European XI worn by José Travassos in 1955 and various other items important to the life story of Sporting. Other items that can be seen are tickets from the opening game at Estádio José Alvalade (1956) and the football boots worn by Acosta during the 2000 season. The next area is the main trophy area and will remain unfinished as Sporting’s teams continue to win.
The mixture of emotions that are felt throughout the first five areas of the tour also carry to the sixth area of the tour, as you experience the same feelings as Sporting’s players as they walk the tunnel to the pitch. Afterwards entering into the next area called “Sporting Passion”. The best is, of course, saved until last, as you enjoy a film showing the highlights of Sporting’s life. The eighth and final area is known as “All Sporting”, where two interactive modules provide plenty of information about the Club including information about the inaugurations of the stadiums in 1956 and 2003, as well as the film of the “50 years of Sporting” (Bodas de Ouro do Sporting).